Sins of Future's Past
by Chase998
Summary: There's a mole in the Joe forces. When a covert operation is blown and a Joe is critically wounded, Flint becomes set on finding who is responsible. COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

_**Author's Updates**_

**02 Sept 05 – Couple of typo goofs and some action continuity changes to this chapter. Absolutely no plot changes have occurred.**

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I haven't watched G.I. Joe in years, but finding this section on FF was a lot of fun! It inspired me to take my first stab at Joe fic. So if you don't like it, well, ya can't win 'em all.

I took a more modern-day, adult approach with the characters, as I always wished someone would do with the characters the show had created.

I would appreciate feedback. Thanks!

All the usual disclaimers – I own none of the show's characters. I just borrow them from time to time for fun. If I owned 'em, my name would be in the credits. I do, however, own a couple of originals that appear in this story.

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Sins of Future's Past

Chapter 1

The air was laden with the acrid smoke of battle, wafting across the mountainside clearing in waves that obscured the enemy's movements. Flint jammed his back up against the chassis of an overturned vehicle, slapping another magazine into his rifle. Shots were whizzing over his head at an alarming rate.

The mission was supposed to have been simple – place a ground satellite station for monitoring small aircraft flying through the mountains. Conventional radar was not doing the job. Small Cobra contingents had been making runs through the area undetected by NORAD and other monitoring stations. The Joes had to put a stop to it. They were nearly finished when the surprised attack was thrust upon them.

The unit had already suffered several casualties in the firefight with the Dreadnoks and Cobra fighters. He could see his people – young and inexperienced – prone on the ground and in pain from their wounds. Their buddies were dragging some to the tree line to the west. Some were simply caught out in the open.

He spotted Lifeline moving in toward one of those that was exposed in the clearing, medical bag in hand, trying to maintain cover in the line of fire that seemed to be increasing.

Flint counted to three, then rose up over the vehicle and began targeting his enemy. He quickly dropped two advancing troopers. By then, they knew where he was and began directing their fire toward him. It was all the better. His intent had been to give Lifeline some breathing room.

Movement to his left caught his eye. Lady Jaye was running and gunning toward his position, narrowly avoiding rounds that skipped on the ground in her wake. She dove behind the Flint's position at the jeep as more rounds pinged off the reinforced hull. Flint sank down again and began to reload.

"Nice to see you, too!" he yelled over the din of the fight.

She quickly leaned against the chassis for cover, as well. She shook her head and rolled her eyes. "I need a new line of work!" she yelled back, also taking the moment to slam in a new magazine.

Flint looked out to where Lifeline was working. Two more medics had arrived and were evacuating the wounded to the rear area where it was safer. He saw more Joe troopers advancing forth to provide additional support, but it was a little too late in the game. They were outnumbered nearly five to one. He had already made the command decision that they would pull back and live to fight another day. Command would not be pleased, but then again, he thought, Command was not sitting out in the woods behind a burned-out jeep being shot at by a hundred Cobra infantry.

He keyed the mic on his radio. "All units, prepare to fall back once the wounded have been cleared. Prepare to fall back!"

"Duke's not going to be sending you roses for this one," Jaye admonished. Even in the heat of battle, she had a sense of humor.

"Can't win 'em all," Flint said, turning.

"Where the hell is our air support?" Jaye groused.

Flint popped off more rounds. "FUBAR'd and outgunned. We're on our own."

Together, they popped up over the top of the jeep and began firing. Jaye quickly glanced at Flint, and he knew she had seen what he did. The troopers were being reinforced from the air. The Joe assault team was low on ammunition, low on backup, and low on their chances of prevailing in the battle. They were about to be overrun.

Jaye kept picking her targets, hitting many but still missing some as her aim became distracted by incoming fire.

Flint keyed the mic again. "All units, fall back!" he yelled. "I say again, fall back!"

Jaye returned to a sitting position behind the jeep and reloaded. "This is NOT my idea of fun!"

Flint looked to their flanks, seeing the general infantry of his team begin to fall back while rounds flew in both directions. Lifeline handed off the last of the wounded to the two medics but seemed to wait, searching the clearing for any more bodies. Flint motioned furiously for him to get back to the tree line where the APCs were waiting for evac, but the medic instead moved forward toward the vehicle. At the last moment, Flint realized why. Cobra fighters were surrounding them. The path back to the LZ had been cut off, trapping them.

"We're in trouble!" Jaye said, continuing to fire.

Lifeline crouched down low behind the jeep with them. "We need to move now! They're coming out of the woodwork!"

Flint did a full three-sixty. There was only one option, and that was to make a run to their left, hoping they could move fast enough to the closest run of trees that could give them some cover. There was a ravine beyond that that they could use for cover. It would at least give them a fighting chance to escape.

He dropped down once again behind the jeep for cover. "On three, we're heading to the north tree line. We can use the ravine to make it out of here."

He counted aloud over the cacophony of gunfire. When he hit three, they leapt up and began running toward the trees. Jaye and he fired rapidly, trying to drive back the advancing forces if only for a few seconds to give the good guys some breathing room. It worked for a moment until the Dreadnoks realized they were facing only three opponents instead of an entire unit. Still, it was just enough time to get near the border of the trees where they could take some cover.

A small explosion nearly knocked him off his feet. The pungent taste of gunpowder clamped on to the back of his tongue as smoke swam down his sinuses. He regained his balance and kept running, seeing Jaye and Lifeline were to his left and had not been hit. The second grenade landed further away, corralling them more to the left. The event actually helped veer them on to a better course toward cover.

Still, Cobra forces were gaining on them. Flint reached the trees first, using one large trunk for cover. When he faced the clearing, he realized Jaye and Lifeline had fallen behind in the race. They were still a good twenty feet away when Flint started laying down more cover fire. The Dreadnoks were not fooled. They took aim at the two runners, foregoing any attempts at Flint who was certainly under better cover.

A spray of rounds tapped into the ground behind Jaye and Lifeline. Flint watched in slow motion as they caught up with them. Lifeline was lagging a step behind her, carrying his medical kit.

Flint saw Jaye, who was always keenly aware of the situation in the midst of a firefight, grab hold of Lifeline's jacket and hurl him forward. The medic was literally lifted off his feet and pushed ahead into the cover of the trees. Just as she did so, she was propelled forward as if pushed. She emitted a loud grunt, her body spinning sharply to the right, crashing into the soft dirt of the mountainside.

Flint's brain processed the scene in slow motion as it played. He saw Lifeline emerge from cover to grab hold of the strap of the quiver that held the explosive javelins she used and begin dragging her into the trees. She tried to help, scrambling with her legs and trying to stand. Together, they collapsed in a heap on the backside of a large pine. His mind assembled all the pieces of the situation into one picture. They were cut off from any support, completely outnumbered and on the run. Now, he had a new problem.

The Dreadnoks and Cobra infantry were closing in fast, eyeing their quarry. Flint dashed over to Lifeline and Lady Jaye. There was no time to think. He reached down and removed the quiver of explosive spears from her torso, pulling one out in a smooth motion. He slipped the sling of the rifle over his neck, flipping the weapon behind his back.

"Get moving to the river!" Flint yelled, expanding the rod. "Don't stop! I'll meet you there in a minute!"

Ed's eyes were wide with stress.

"Go!" Flint shouted, snapping the medic out of his trance.

She was trying to stand. Flint saw the growing patch of dark rust color on her back just below the tip of her shoulder blade. Lifeline scrambled out from underneath her to help get her upright. His hand swooped down in time to grab his medical kit and sling it over his shoulders. He wrapped her arm around his neck to keep her standing. They were then running toward the ravine, leaving Flint to fend off the enemy and buy the Joes some time to escape.

He launched the javelin at the largest cluster of oncoming Dreadnoks. It was not a pretty throw, but it landed close enough to them to blow some of them off their feet and take them out of the game. He reached for another from the quiver and threw it. His throws were nowhere near as refined as Lady Jaye's. She finessed the weapon far better than he could ever have hoped with years of practice.

The second javelin was not as effective as the first, but it did manage to make the Dreadnoks take pause before continuing to close in on him. He began to retreat into the woods, using the trees for cover as he went. He readied another javelin, waiting until a group of Dreadnoks had ventured far enough into the trees before he launched it. The aftermath was better than he had hoped. The explosion caused a tree to come crashing down, scattering the pursuers in all directions but his. He turned and ran at a full sprint toward the ravine, trying to catch up to his teammates.

He could hear the roar of river water ahead of him and the voices of the Dreadnoks in the distance behind him. The sun was beginning to set, darkening the woods as the trees blocked out what little light from the sky remained. Flint ran headlong until the flat ground began to give way to an incline. He came to the precipice of the ravine and kept going. He could see Lifeline and Jaye halfway down the slope.

The voices behind became stronger. Then a new volley of gunfire began following him. He veered toward Lifeline and Jaye, trying to catch up with them. The river was their only chance. They could ride it out a while and call in for help once they were clear of the main area of battle.

He expected they would continue to the river, but Lifeline stopped, with Lady Jaye's arm still wrapped about his shoulders for support. Flint caught up to them a few seconds later and realized why they had stopped. It was a nearly twelve-foot drop to the bank of the river. The drop was straight down, and there was no telling the depth of the water roiling below them in a pool. Lifeline looked at Flint for guidance.

The choice was taken away from all three when a grenade exploded near them, sending the three Joes sailing into the air and toward the water.

Flint's skin went shockingly cold as he hit the water. The undercurrent grabbed hold of his body and pulled him into the main flow of the river. He kicked toward the surface, yearning for a breath of air. His head broke the surface briefly, but it was enough to steal one ragged intake before he was pulled under the surface once more. His instincts kicked in as he was dragged along the waterway. He oriented his feet forward, downriver to ward off some of the impact of boulders that were strewn in the rapids. He kicked upward again, finally breaking the surface and steadying himself well enough to keep his head above water.

He immediately began looking for Lifeline and Jaye. The water was chaotic, throwing him in every direction as the landscape underneath redirected the current in obscure angles. He finally caught sight of them. He was nearly parallel with them. Lifeline cradled Jaye's body in his arms as they rode out the current.

They were fast approaching a bend in the river. Flint altered the angle of his body to close the gap between them, swimming with his arms. He knew he would never make it at the rate he was going. He let go of the quiver of javelins he held tightly in his hand and began swimming with everything he had. The white rapids were beginning to dissipate. He felt the water become deeper and calmer than where they had entered. The weight of his fatigues caused drag as he tried to swim within the current, but he managed to reach them in time. He clamped on to Lifeline's collar with his hand and began pulling them toward the shore, kicking as hard as he could with his legs.

He kicked until the muscles in his legs burned with the effort. He didn't bother to look at the trajectory of the approaching bend. He just kicked with everything he had, trying to tow them to shore. Just when he thought he could not go on any more, he toe dug into the soft gravel of the river bottom. He kicked again until both feet made contact with the soft rock. He stood, pulling with everything he had to bring them on to the shore.

The shore was wide and flat, covered with smooth stones that had become exposed when the river's water level dropped in the summer. Lifeline tried to stand, but Jaye's waterlogged weight in his arms was too much. Flint took her from him, hooking his arms under her shoulders and pulling her completely on to the shore. She was awake, but her feet dragged loudly against the stones, leaving a gouged trail. He walked backward with her in his arms until he felt soft sand under his boots and laid her down gently on the ground.

Her eyes were open. She looked up him in cold shock. She was breathing in tiny jagged, quick breaths. Lifeline trudged out of the water as quickly as he could. He came toward them and dropped down to the ground, unslinging his medical kit and ripping open the flap.

"Help me turn her on her side," Ed ordered, panting as he shrugged out of his heavy jacket.

Flint moved over opposite Ed and helped roll her on her side. She gave a muffled cry with the movement. When Lifeline cut away part of her BDU shirt, he could see where the bullet had entered. The wound was an angry red. A thin line of blood trickled from the hole, mixing with the river water on her skin.

While she did not fight them in the movement, Flint could see her shaking hands clench with the action. Her legs pulled up slightly as she fought the pain he knew they were inflicting.

Lifeline reached into the kit and pulled out compression bandage, tearing open the package with his teeth and one hand as he kept pressure on the wound with his other hand. A wave of shock flittered through Flint as he saw her blood on Lifeline's hands. It was bright even in the darkening twilight. Lifeline pushed the pressure bandage onto the wound and told Flint to roll her onto her flat once more.

The medic took her pale arm in his and reached for an IV solution bag out of the kit. He unsheathed the needle, patting her cold skin with the back of his hand in an attempt to raise a vein for insertion. He prodded until he found something acceptable and slid the needle home. If it was painful for Allison, Flint could not see it. He doubted a needle hurt worse than the hole in her back from a Cobra bullet.

He reached for the radio near his shoulder. "Flint to Ops Base!"

"Ops Base. This is Mainframe, Flint," came the reply.

"Medical emergency! We need immediate evac on my signal location!"

"We have you on our screens, Flint, but the snakes have the area locked down. We're trying to get to you as fast as we can."

"Work faster! Jaye's been hit. We need evac now!"

Duke's voice sounded over the radio. "Flint, just stay where you are. We're going to get someone to you as soon as we can."

Flint let go of the mic key. "Dammit!" he yelled in frustration.

Lifeline pulled out a syringe and a small vial from his kit. He prepared to draw a dose from the bottle when Jaye stopped him with her hand.

"No," she managed with labored breath. "Need to be able to move if we have to."

Lifeline never gave it consideration and continued drawing the dose. "You're losing too much blood. We have to slow down your heart or you're going to bleed to death."

He pushed the syringe into the port on the IV line. It took a moment before she began to relax. Flint saw her shoulders drop down, the muscles no longer so taut against the pain. Her eyes glazed in the wake of the morphine.

"Dash?" she said weakly.

"I'm here," he said gently, leaning down closer to her so she could see his face. He took her hand in his, shocked at how cold it was.

"Don't you wait around on me," she warned. "You go if you get the chance."

All at once, she was wracked with a series of choking coughs. Lifeline was there, instantly sitting her up slightly until the spasm had passed. When it was over, he laid her flat again on the cold riverbed.

Flint felt his emotions split into a thousand pieces as he looked at her. "You can't pull rank on me," he said with a forced smile. "We're all getting out of here."

Her eyes drifted closed as the medication took full effect. Her hand went limp in his, frightening him until he saw the quick, inefficient rise of her chest as her body fought to breathe.

Lifeline reached into his kit once more and drew out pack of latex gloves. He put them on quickly. "Help me roll her again," he said.

"Why? What's wrong?" Flint asked, alarmed.

Lifeline looked him in the eyes. "I have to see how deep the bullet is. The only way I can do that right here and now is to put my finger in the wound and feel around. I'm willing to bet we're not getting out of here any time soon. I need to know how bad the damage is."

Flint looked down at the woman now sleeping quietly on the sands of the river. The idea of what Lifeline wanted to do seemed so vulgar.

"Flint!" Lifeline said sternly. "Roll her!"

Flint snapped out of his reverie and did as he was told. Lifeline removed the bandage and set it aside on her hip. Flint saw Ed close his eyes and insert an index finger into the hole, pressing gently into the wound. Flint stopped watching after Ed approached the second knuckle.

Lifeline finished the task.

"How bad is it?" Flint asked.

Lifeline sat back on his haunches and shook his head in frustration. "I can't feel it."

"And that means?"

"It means it's deep. We need to get it out as soon as possible."

"How much time do we have?"

Lifeline reached into his kit for antiseptic. "Look, bullets are funny things when they enter the body. They tumble. They take unexpected paths." He poured the liquid directly on the wound. "From the angle, I at least know it hit her lung. I can at hear that much. Where it went from there is simply a guess. But I do know for certain that she's bleeding internally, and right here is no place to do something about it."

Flint looked down at her again. Lifeline kept her on her side, not opting to bring her flat on the sand again. She seemed to be sleeping peacefully save the irregular breathing pattern. He saw the frothy bright red tinge of blood in the corner of her mouth. He had seen that once before, when one of the infantry soldiers had been hit in a firefight. The trooper didn't make it. Then, though, it was not personal for Flint. Though he took every one of their losses to heart, the trooper had been more a number than anything else. He tried to think of the soldier's name, but it would not come to mind. He swore he would remember the names of every soldier that perished, but he couldn't remember one at the moment.

The radio crackled to life. "Duke to Wild Bill, I know you can hear me!"

Flint could hear the chop of rotor blades in the background as Wild Bill responded to his commanding officer. "I hear ya, Duke, but you know I gotta do this."

"Bill, you RTB right now, do you understand me! You land that bird immediately!" Duke said sternly.

There was a short pause. "Can't do that, boss. We don't leave our people behind, and none of you is going to be able to land where they are. Flint, you got your ears on?"

Flint reached quickly for the radio mic key. "I hear you, Wild Bill. Are you sure about this?"

"I'm a pilot, Flint. I'm always sure! Except," he said, almost as an afterthought, "I haven't flown one of these transport beasts in a while. The landing may not be pretty."

"You get us out of here in one piece and I won't say a word, cowboy."

"How's our girl?" Bill asked.

Flint looked to Lifeline, who gave a slight shake of his head to indicate things were not going well.

"The sooner you get here, the better. Lifeline's trying to stabilize her, but I don't think we have a lot of time to spare. Cobra's going to come looking for us at some point if they haven't started already."

"Well, you get that pop gun of yours on the ready. They're going to know exactly where we are once I fly this hulk into your LZ."

"Copy that," Flint said. "What's your ETA?"

"As the crow flies, I'd say I'll be in your neck of the woods in fifteen," Bill said. "You just keep your head down until you hear me coming."

"Roger that!" Flint said excitedly.

Lifeline pulled out a stethoscope from his kit. "You mind telling me what happened?"

Flint didn't follow. "What do you mean?"

"I mean this attack came out of nowhere," Lifeline said, a twinge of anger seeping into his voice. "It was a covert op. How did we get jumped so badly?"

It was a question that had been trickling in the back of Flint's mind from the first moment he saw enemy troopers coming at them, but he had put it on hold until that moment.

"I don't know," he admitted. He put his hand on Allison's head, smoothing her wet hair back in a gentle caress. "But I'm going to find out."

"First thing's first," Lifeline said. "Let's get out of here in one piece."

Flint pulled his sidearm out of its holster and handed it in Lifeline's direction. "Take this," he ordered.

Lifeline gave an ironic laugh. "Good one."

"It's not a request, Ed."

"I don't care what it is. I'm not taking a gun," Lifeline said calmly. "You do your job and I'll do mine. When that bird lands, I don't plan on sticking around and mixing it up with Cobra. If you want to, be my guest. I'll be back for you in the morning."

Ed went back to tending to Lady Jaye. Flint stood, knowing the argument was useless with the medic who had taken a pacifist stance when it came to battle. He walked to the water's edge, looking up river for any signs of pursuing Cobra forces. The darkening skies limited his vision. The roar of the water masked all other sounds.

He checked his rifle. Seven rounds in the magazine and one additional magazine was not a lot if they ran into more trouble. He had always prided himself on his accurate shooting, but the ammunition at his disposal was in short supply. When Cobra came calling, he had the distinct feeling they were going to do it full-force. He had no doubt they would descend on the area when they heard Wild Bill approach. Flint knew his people would be out in the open, subject to incoming fire with no cover. In any case, though, they had to make a move at some point. With one wounded, they would not be able to go far at any speed.

Lifeline's words ground in his mind about the possibility of being sold out to Cobra. They had taken every precaution, kept the setup team small to minimize exposure. He ran through the players in the game, seeing their faces. Joe team ops had become a matter of trust. He trusted everyone who had been accepted into the corps. Lives depended on the very fact.

He felt his anger rise, heat seeping across his face. He would find the answer. He would find who was responsible, and they would pay.

He gave one more look up the river, scanning for any movement but not seeing any. He turned and headed back to where Lifeline and Lady Jaye were waiting. Lifeline had put the soggy jacket over Jaye's legs. Flint knelt down next to her unmoving form again, watching Lifeline work on her back. He saw urgency in the medic's work.

"Ed?"

Lifeline did not look up at Flint. "How much longer until the chopper?"

Flint checked his watch. "About seven minutes."

"Call him and tell him to step it up," Lifeline said calmly.

"I don't know if he can," Flint said.

"Then tell him to sprout wings. Her vitals are dropping like hell," he said, feeling for a pulse in Jaye's wrist.

Flint keyed his radio again. "Flint to Wild Bill. We need an update on your ETA."

"Wild Bill, here," came the response. "You boys just keep looking to the south. You should hear my chop in two minutes!"

Lifeline immediately began packing up his supplies, preparing to move.

"That's good to hear," Flint radioed. "We'll be waiting."

Flint listened for the helicopter, but the sound of the water masked it. He knew from experience that he should have been able to hear it even at two minutes out, but the river was going to make that impossible until Wild Bill was practically on top of them. The enemies in the hills, though, would not be impeded by the river's rush. They would know Wild Bill was in the area right away.

He looked around, estimating where Wild Bill would land the chopper. The LZ was tight, with not much give for error. He had every confidence that the pilot would be able to bring the chopper down accurately, but they would be one big target.

Flint took up position at the water's edge, eagerly scanning the hills for movement. Still, he saw nothing. It was possible Cobra had packed up and gone home, but he doubted it knowing the tenacity of the Dreadnoks. They reveled in the hunt.

He locked and loaded his rifle, hearing the satisfying click of a round sliding into the chamber. Then he heard the distance thump of rotors. The sound grew, echoing off the walls of the river's canyon. He strained to find its source, knowing Bill said he would be approaching from the south but failing to see the bird. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement high in the air. Three Sky Strikers flew overhead in formation. Beyond the cover of the trees, he saw a bright flash and heard an explosion as the Strikers engaged Cobra forces.

"Yes!" Flint shouted, pumping his fist in the air.

The air was suddenly roaring with the sound of the helicopter's blades slicing through the cooling night air. Wild Bill began his careful descent, turning slightly left and right trying to fit the chopper in to the tight space. The cowboy had brought a medevac chopper, one with no defensive capabilities. While Lifeline would have what he needed, there would be no weapons on board to fight off an attack by Cobra as they egressed.

Lifeline shielded Lady Jaye's body with his own, protecting her from the spray of water kicked up by the chopper's wash. Flint secured his rifle and bent down to pick her up. Lifeline kept the IV line from getting tangled in the process, putting the bag in her lap as Flint picked her up and turned for the chopper.

Lifeline tore open the door of the Blackhawk and jumped inside, ready to receive Lady Jaye when Flint handed her off to him. Together, they put her on a stretcher that was hooked to the wall. Flint slammed the door shut.

"Go! Go! Go!" he called to Bill in the cockpit.

The chopper lifted off the ground. Flint instinctively reached for a hand strap hanging from the ceiling to steady himself. Lifeline was flipping open supply cabinets, pulling out an oxygen mask and placing it on his patient. With two hands, he grasped her shirt at the collar and pulled sharply, snapping the buttons of her shirt that skittered across the floor. He pulled a portable EKG monitor from the shelf above the stretcher and placed it on her legs, flipping on the switch. He took a handful of leads began placing them on her torso. The monitor lit up as a signal was received.

The helicopter was buffeted by rough air in the mountains. Wild Bill brought it under control quickly. Flint felt the chopper angle down slightly as Bill headed for calmer air at a lower altitude.

Lifeline skinned back Allison's eyelids and shined a penlight in her eyes. They looked lifeless to Flint, unseeing. The medic checked each eye twice, not giving Flint any clue as to the results. Lifeline was in a driven mode, working quickly on his patient now that he had more adequate supplies at his disposal. He cut into the sleeve of her shirt and cleared away the shreds of cloth. He wrapped a blood pressure cuff around her arm, inflating it to take a reading. Flint was silently amazed that any medic could hear a human pulse through a stethoscope above the loud thump of the helo's rotors.

Lifeline finished, hanging the stethoscope around his neck, and looked to the cockpit of the helo. "Bill, we need to punch it!"

The medic moved to the head of the stretcher and slipped on a headset. "Lifeline to Doc."

Flint grabbed a set of headphones hanging near him at the other end of the stretcher. He heard Doc's response.

"Doc here, Lifeline. Go."

"Inbound with a gunshot wound to the back. Diminished breath sounds on the left side. Her pressure's dropping fast. I'm preparing to intubate."

Flint listened as Doc and Lifeline exchanged information. Lifeline was pulling out more equipment as the conversation continued. Flint knew what it meant to intubate a patient. He had seen it done once before on the trooper who had died. This time it was different, though. Lifeline was performing the procedure on a woman with whom Flint had developed a close bond. He went so far as to admit that he felt more for her than he should have in a special operations group of the military. He looked at her, seeing her eyes closed, looking nothing more than if she were simply sleeping. He was grateful she was not in pain.

Lifeline completed the procedure and motioned for Flint to come closer. He put Flint's hand on the bag attached to the tube that now protruded from her mouth.

"Squeeze this every five seconds or so," Lifeline ordered.

The monitor began to sound an alarm. It startled Lifeline who looked down at the readings. Even with the most minimal medical training, Flint could see the erratic lines of the readings. Her heart was beginning to fail.

Lifeline called the situation in to Doc as it progressed. Flint could do nothing except continue what Lifeline had told him to do – breathe for Allison. The monitor emitted a steady high-pitched whine as her heartbeat was reduced to a mere flutter. Before Flint knew it, Lifeline was reaching for paddles on the wall, telling Flint to let go of the bag.

"Clear!"

Flint was startled by the sharp flinch of her body as Lifeline administered the first shock. The monitor registered a result almost immediately. Steadier dips and spikes began crawling across the screen. Lifeline nodded for Flint to start pressing the bag again. Lifeline injected more medications into the IV line.

The helo began to turn to the left. Flint knew they were on final approach to the base. He looked out the window and saw that Bill was coming in hot, far faster than what was normal for a landing. He could see people waiting on the ground, huddled, ready to receive them once they landed.

The wheels touched down on the tarmac. Almost immediately, the door was opened to the Blackhawk. Two corpsmen jumped inside and prepared to disconnect the stretcher from the wall. Lifeline took over Flint's duty. They moved Lady Jaye out of the chopper quickly, laying the stretcher on a waiting gurney and rushed off toward the triage area of the base.

Bill began powering down the chopper. The blades began slowing as the engine quieted. Flint watched as the medical entourage disappeared into the bright light of the double doors to the medical unit. He picked up his rifle, securing the safety.

Silhouetted against the light, he recognized Duke's form coming toward him at a quick clip. He reached Flint rather quickly. He could tell the unit's commander was loaded for bear.

Flint tried to brush past him. "I don't have time for this, Duke. I have to get in there."

"You need to make time," Duke countered. "I need to know what happened."

Flint stopped short. "What happened?" he asked, incredulous. "We got jumped, that's what happened! Our top secret mission was compromised, that's what happened!"

"I know," Duke said calmly, unfazed by Flint's ire. "I need you to help me figure out how. Can you do that?"

"Not right now," Flint said, pushing past Duke. "I have to get in there," he said again, his anger welling in his chest.

Duke grabbed hold of Flint's arm, stopping his motion. "They're taking care of her, Dash. There's nothing more you can do. Right now, you need to get into some dry greens and get debriefed on what happened." Duke lessened his grip. "Come on."

Duke reached out and took the rifle from Flint's hand. Flint was exhausted, the adrenaline finally bleeding off his senses. Bill approached them. Duke nodded in Bill's direction.

"Bill?" Duke said.

"I'll take care of him," Bill assured. He clapped a hand on Flint's shoulder. "Come on, Flint. The sooner we get all this done, the sooner you can check on her."

Flint's shoulders slumped, knowing he was in no position to fight the two men. He closed his eyes, giving in to their request. He nodded slightly after a moment and headed for the barracks as ordered.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note - 30 Aug 05 - Thanks for the feedback! I'm having a ball writing this. As I mentioned in the notes in Chapter 1, I have been going back and refining some things - dialogue, technical doohickies and procedures, etc. - and this chapter will be no exception, since I am pretty much posting this with just a once-through. I have a habit of writing the bigger points of the story and filling in the finessing parts later. The tiny things may continue to change as I go back and reread what I have written, but rest assured that the plot will not change. You will not be slammed with a factoid that changed suddenly in a rewrite that throws the rest of the arc off kilter. If I have to do that, you'll be the first to know! Thanks!

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Chapter 2

Dry greens felt good. Flint sat on the edge of his bunk, looking at his boots. He always kept a spare pair that was spit-shined and ready to go in his locker. He expected that much of his soldiers, and he would not expect something of them he did not do himself. Duke's order had been simple enough – get some dry clothes on and report to the command center for a report. Still, no matter how he tried, he could not shake the involuntary shivers that ran through his body.

Flint gripped the rails of his bunk tighter. What was there to report, he asked himself again for the thousandth time since the helo had made it back base. Cobra had jumped them in brutal fashion. He had asked Bill for an update on casualties on the way to the barracks, and it was at least four. It was possible at least one of them might not make it.

He heard a tiny rap at his door. "Flint?" Wild Bill's drawl was unmistakable. "Flint, you all right?"

Flint summoned the energy to stand. He walked to door and opened it. Wild Bill stood there, shoulders squared, not in the least intimidated by Flint's anger on the runway.

"You okay there, buddy?" Bill asked, taking a cautious step forward.

Flint's eyes were uncontrolled. He could not seem to focus on any one point.

"I'm fine," he lied.

Bill was skeptical but played along for good sport. "Duke wants us to debrief. You up to that?"

"Yeah," Flint said, the fib slipping easily from his lips.

He noticed Bill's concern at what must have been a vision and a half of a man who had been dragged through a river. Flint blinked quickly to clear his vision and his head.

"I'm fine," Flint reiterated, trying to reassure the pilot.

Flint took a comfort in Bill's steadying hand on his shoulder. When they entered the main base area, everything suddenly looked foreign. The buildings looked like nothing Flint had ever seen. It was as if he were seeing the base for the first time.

Bill led him to the command center. The building was adjacent to the infirmary, where he knew they were working on the Joe fighters who had been injured in the battle. It took until that moment for it to sink in that Lady Jaye had not been the only one to take a hit. At least three other troopers had been injured. He had no idea if they were as bad off as he knew she was, but he would make it a point to check once he finished with Duke.

He walked through the doors of the command center, followed closely by Bill. He looked up at a clock they passed, noticing it was only nine o'clock. He had been sure it had been much later. It felt that way, anyway, he thought.

They continued down the hall until they came to a security checkpoint. Flint placed his hand on the biometric scanner. A green light bar ran the length of this hand, identifying him when it finished. Bill followed suite until the center's computers cleared both of them to enter the restricted area. One more check point, and they were in the heart of the command center. Large screens on the walls tracked tactical data and troop movements. International security and the fight against Cobra was a twenty-four hour job. The evening monitoring crew had come on duty, their voices a quiet murmur of information flowing about the room. Flint could also see familiar faces in the Joe command ranks. A couple of them gave a nod to Flint, letting him know they were aware of the day's events.

Duke saw them through the large windows of the briefing room that looked out over the command center. He motioned to them to enter. Flint took a moment to look at the status screens. Several air units were flying a patrol on heightened alert. Two ground units were on the move toward the strike point of the afternoon, presumably to get an eye on the area to see what remained or if Cobra had bugged out completely.

The briefing room was quieter. It had its own miniature set of screens with information that reiterated the larger boards in the command center. Flint saw Mainframe, Leatherneck, Scarlett and Hawk seated around the table. Duke motioned for Flint and Wild Bill to take their places in the empty seats that remained. Flint jerked at a sudden onslaught of shivering that he could not control. He worked hard to hide it from the others, not in any mood to detract from what had to be done. Still, his teeth chattered until he clamped his jaw shut to hide it.

"Flint," Hawk said, "we're piecing together facts of today. What can you tell us?"

Flint almost laughed – not because anything had been funny the whole day but because he had so few answers. It was difficult to tell your commanding officer you didn't have a clue what happened, that you were suddenly crouching behind a jeep, watching those around you running for their lives.

"Not much," Flint said. "Cobra got the jump on us. By the time we figured out what was happening, it was too late. We were getting pounded. It was like," Flint said, struggling, "it was like they knew where we were going to be and nailed us."

Duke poured coffee from a carafe on the table. "That's exactly what it looks like."

"They had us surrounded," Flint said, images of the battle flashing in his mind. "It wasn't like we just happened to run into each other out there. They surrounded us. It was precision."

Hawk sat back in his chair at the head of the table. "What can you remember about their armament?"

"Standard stuff, along with whatever party favors the Dreadnoks brought to the game. It was a matter of numbers, General. We went in with a small covert op team, most of whom were civil engineers, and they hit us with a freight train."

Mainframe nodded. "Yeah, that's exactly what it looked like to us here."

"A head's up would have been nice!" Flint snapped.

"We didn't register them on the radar until they had already engaged you," Mainframe said calmly. "They were completely ghosted until just after the air support units were attacked."

"That's impossible," Flint argued. "There's no intel that they have stealth capabilities."

Scarlett looked at Flint. "Well, they apparently have something that's scrambling our read on them. We have two recon units heading back to the location to what's going on there. So far, it's been quiet."

Flint stood suddenly. "I need to get back up there."

"Sit down, Flint," Duke said. "You're not going anywhere."

Leatherneck laid a hand on Flint's forearm. "My recon units can handle it, Flint. They're not going to go running in there now that they know Cobra's hit it."

Hawk looked at Flint. "Sit down, Dash. You've done your part for today."

Flint reluctantly sat down in his chair once more. Leatherneck poured him a cup of coffee and slid the cup toward him. Flint took accepted it, taking a sip of the hot liquid. It felt good, warming him internally. It countered some of the chill he felt. At least it calmed the muscles in his jaw that had been so tense they ached.

"General," Duke said, "I think we have a bigger problem on our hands than just getting jumped today." He saw Flint take offense and begin to protest. "I'm not minimizing what happened, but I think we have a mole."

Hawk sighed. "I was afraid of this. It wouldn't be the first time, but this is the first time we've lost so much as a result. Do we have any suspects?"

Mainframe pushed a folder across the table to Hawk. "Obviously, anyone who works in the control center knew the mission was happening. You have the ground personnel who were on the mission. The support units were on a need-to-know basis, so they would only know if one of the main support operatives let it slip."

Hawk opened the folder and looked at the roster of names. "Flint, where did the attack seem directed?"

"Definitely on the surveillance unit," Flint said, more memories of explosions flicking in his mind. "The Dreadnoks were going after people for fun, but the air strikes were targeting the unit."

Scarlett picked up a remote control and pointed it to one of the screens in the room, pressing a button. The screen lit up with a radar playback of the attack from the air.

"Air units took a beating up there," she said, beginning the presentation. "As you can see, they don't show up until the first Sky Striker is engaged. Apparently, the pilots didn't see them coming, either."

"I saw them get hit," Flint said, concerned. "How are they?"

"Bumps and bruises," Scarlett said, "but they were able to punch out in time. SAR units picked them up about an hour ago. We lost a total of three Strikers to Cobra."

"It's a good thing you had three spares to cover Bill in the Blackhawk," Flint said. "We would have had hellfire raining down on us if they hadn't taken Cobra out during evac."

Scarlett looked to Hawk and Duke for guidance. There was a heavy moment of confusion between them.

"We didn't send any Strikers up," Scarlett said.

"I saw three fly overhead just as Bill was picking us up," Flint said warily. He looked to Bill.

Bill nodded with a solid dip of his head. "I saw 'em, too. Three Strikers were flying support in that canyon. They took out some choppers that had landed at the surveillance site. I didn't stick around to see their encore, but Flint's right – we had three birds in the air."

Scarlett shook her head again. "And I'm telling you, we didn't have the pilots to send three more up. We had already committed the rest of the squadron to the presidential detail for the weekend."

Flint remembered the presidential detail request they had received. The United States president was meeting with world dignitaries in Washington, D.C. He and Jaye had originally been scheduled to join that op, but at the last minute, he convinced her to go on the covert op in the mountains instead. _It'll be like a camping trip_, he told her.

"We'd have never made it out of there without the help of those Strikers," Flint said quietly.

"All right," Hawk said, "let's put the mystery Strikers aside for the moment. Flint, I want to start from the top. Tell me what happened up there."

Flint did not know where to begin. The details were so chaotic, the attack so sudden that there was no time to rally the small group into something effective.

"We had finished putting up the last array of the surveillance system. Dornan – that was the tech working on the system – said he needed about ten minutes to get everything online. We didn't hear it coming. The Rattlers lit us up hard. I'm assuming Night Ravens took out our Striker coverage."

"The Strikers never had a chance," Scarlett said sadly.

"Well, neither did we," Flint continued. "We had three wounded out of twenty troopers before we knew it. I had ordered Lifeline to start getting them evacuated back to the APCs. We waited until all the wounded had been moved. That's when Cobra surrounded us. We only had one place to go."

Wild Bill played with the pattern of wood grain in the table with contemplation. "They rounded you up like cattle."

"Something like that," Flint said quietly. He shivered again. This time, though, he knew Hawk had seen it.

"I want a full analysis of all data we have," Hawk said to Mainframe. "Duke, Scarlett, Leatherneck – I want you digging through personnel files and find out who tipped off Cobra. I want everyone from pilots to mechanics checked out."

"Yes, sir," Duke replied.

"Bill, as of right now, I don't have a choice but to ground you," Hawk continued.

Flint was shocked. "General, he was just . . ."

Hawk held up a hand to ward off Flint's objections. "In the meantime, Bill, you will escort Flint to the infirmary and make sure Doc or someone there checks him out. Let Lifeline know I'm ordering the three of you on stand-down for now until we can get a handle on everything."

"Yes, sir," Bill answered without argument.

Hawk folded his hands across his lap. "I know I don't have to say this, but I will – this situation does not leave this room. Conduct your investigations quietly. If we do have a mole, I don't want Cobra getting any more information than it already has." He closed the folder. "Dismissed."

It was the word Flint wanted to hear. He was heading for the door. Bill did not catch up with him until the first security check point.

"Whoa, slow down there, partner," Bill yelled from down the corridor.

Flint slowed his pace, looking back at the pilot, but he did not completely stop. "Sorry," he said.

"No need to be sorry, Flint," Bill said. "Just doing as Hawk ordered is all."

"Sorry about you getting grounded. I didn't think Hawk would do that."

Bill shrugged. "Not the first time my butt's been planted on the ground. Won't be the last. I'd do it again in a heartbeat if I had to."

"I just wanted you to know I appreciate what you did. We never would have made it out of there without you or our phantom jets, whoever was flying them."

Bill stretched his arms over his head, yawning. "Yeah, well, they pulled my bacon out of the fire when I was on approach to you. I saw those snakes closing in fast. They were sure as hell out to get us."

The infirmary loomed ahead of them. Bill stepped ahead, activating the automated doors, allowing Flint to enter. The triage area was quiet. There were signs, though, of how chaotic it must have been earlier. Some of the treatment areas were being scrubbed down. Flint saw bloody remnants of medical supplies on the floor where an attendant was sweeping.

Bill broke left and headed for the information desk where an older woman sat. Flint recognized her as the head nurse of the emergency department.

"I need to have someone check out Flint there. Hawk's orders," Bill said to her.

"Let's get him into a room," she said, standing.

She led them to a treatment room and told Flint to sit on the table. She ran up his sleeve and wrapped a blood pressure cuff around his arm, inflating it. She got the reading and removed it, telling him to lie back on the bed.

He did as he was told, but his patience was running thin. "Have you heard anything on Lady Jaye?" he asked.

"Still in surgery," the nurse said, preparing a thermometer. "I'd imagine it's going to be a while before they're finished."

She probed Flint's ear with the tip of the instrument. He shivered again. Another woman entered through the treatment room door. She was short, looked impossibly young, with dark flowing hair. Flint inferred from the lab coat that she was a doctor.

"I'm Doctor Suarez," she said, approaching Flint with a smile. "Heard you had a rough day."

"You could say that," Flint answered, working very hard to keep a sarcastic tone out of his voice.

She looked at the reading from the thermometer. "Your temp is a little low. Lifeline said you took a ride in the river."

"Yeah, we did," Flint said, almost in a whisper. "Have you heard anything on Lady Jaye?"

Doctor Suarez turned to the nurse. "Let's get a warm blanket on him." She turned back to Flint, reaching down to take a pulse reading in his wrist, timing the beats on her watch. "I was here when you brought her in. She lost a lot of blood."

"Meaning?" Flint asked cautiously.

She let go of his wrist. She looked sympathetically at him. "It means that Doc is doing the best he can right now. The bullet punctured her lung and nicked an artery. That's very serious damage. We won't know for sure until Doc finishes up."

Bill folded his arms across his chest. "What about the others?"

"All three suffered gunshot wounds, but they were stable and in good condition. Everyone, including pilots, is going to be okay. They were lucky," Suarez said. She put a hand on Flint's shoulder. "I want you to rest here for a while."

Flint resisted, but she was insistent. The nurse returned with a blanket. They wrapped it around Flint. It was warm, like it had come from an oven. His body soaked in the warmth readily. He wanted to sink down in, melt away the cold he could not shake on his own.

"You're a little shocky," she said, pulling the blanket up around his neck. "I want to keep an eye on you. Irene will bring you another blanket if you want. You need to try to sleep a bit, though. Let's at least get that body temp of yours back to normal. As soon as Lady Jaye is out of surgery, one of us will come get you."

He was in no position to argue. His body was rebelling with exhaustion and stress. The blankets were so warm and inviting. His eyes closed. He remembered one of two occasions when he felt the same kind of blissful comfort, and both had been with Allison. Once had been on a mission, when they were forced to sleep close together for warmth.

And once, he recalled with a smile, had been purely for recreation. He awoke the following morning feeling her warm form next to him, knowing he could touch her while she slept, could hold her close and close his eyes. For one night, they had blocked out the war against Cobra and how it had changed everything. They forgot about death and destruction and all the ways Cobra had tried to take over the world in its own twisted way. He forgot all about it because she was there with him, his arm wrapped about her in the early dawn hours.

The affair had not lasted long, at least not for her. The next day, she told him how much of a mistake it had been, that they should never have gone so far. It was Allison who put the stops on and brought everything under control. She had actually distanced herself from him when she could, especially on missions. Still, she had her moments of weakness, when no one was looking where chemistry got the better of her and she would give in to a kiss or a caress. She had always been good about following the rules, and the rules said their developing relationship was a no-no in the world of military careers.

As a commanding officer, it had been stupid to even let it get that far, he knew. He was bordering on a severe conflict of interest every time he let it escalate. She was technically a subordinate. He was a warrant officer and had been named third-in-command of the Joes. She was enlisted, and although she had come up through the ranks in the Joes to Sergeant First Class, he knew he was still breaking the rules. There was no mixing of officers, warrant or full, and enlisted. Duke and Hawk had not said anything officially about it, but he knew they had an eye closely on the situation. Flint had quickly learned the meaning of discretion.

His thoughts strayed to that morning again, remembering the first birds he heard through the open window, a chilled breeze blowing through the curtains. He pulled her close, feeling the bare skin of her back against his chest. Her arm entwined with his, the two of them reveling in the cool fall air that filled the room with the perfume of decaying leaves. That moment had been solely their own, with no thought of war or the military or rules. He wanted that back but knew it was practically impossible. One of them would have to give up a career in order to be with the other, and neither was in a position to do that. They had both chosen this path they were on, to fight the good fight against a terrorist organization that was bent on ruling the planet through extortion and outright brutality. Cobra was nothing more than a gang of thugs with a higher-than-average intelligence level. Cobra Commander surrounded himself with like minds that wanted the power but none of whom were willing to share what they got. At least the Joes were all on the same page when it came to goals. They wanted to preserve freedom and democracy for all people, and maybe there was a little yearning for revenge against Cobra thrown into that mix every now and then.

His body gave one more shiver in protest of the day's events before he fell fast asleep in the treatment room of the infirmary.


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Notes:

I realized as I was writing this that I was using some military terms that may not be familiar, such as acronyms. To explain it in the story feels like I'm dumbing it down, and I don't want to do that. I have always felt it is good to learn at least one new thing a day. So, if you don't know what it is, look it up. You'll be smarter for it.

Also, if you're looking for a super quick story, this isn't it. I try to fill out arcs when I write, so please be patient. I'll keep writing if you keep reading.

And thanks for the feedback! I'm glad you're enjoying this story. I hope you continue to read!

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Chapter 3

Flint heard his name being called somewhere in the distance. He did not want to open his eyes. The lids felt so heavy and he had found a true comfort zone. It was difficult to open them, but he forced himself to waken. It took a moment for him to focus, to identify his surroundings. He saw Doctor Suarez standing there, heard her calling his name.

He sat bolt upright, reality catching up to him at lightning speed when he realized exactly where he was and how he got there.

"Easy," she soothed, laying her hand on his shoulder.

"Allison . . ." he breathed, rubbing his eyes.

Suarez urged him back on the gurney. "Doc just finished with her. They're getting her settled in the ICU."

Flint managed to get the burning in his eyes under control for a few seconds, enough to look up at Suarez. He saw her concern.

"She's okay, then?" he asked, knowing better but holding out hope.

"She's strong," Suarez offered, picking careful words. "We're going to do everything we can. Doc got the bullet and repaired the holes, but she's not out of the woods yet."

His hands went back to his eyes as the burning began again. "Can I see her?"

"Bill went to get a wheelchair for you."

"I can walk," Flint insisted.

"Not until I say so," Suarez replied strongly. "I don't need you undoing what rest you've gotten."

He could not help but smile at her victory. "You're persistent for a newbie."

"My father was military. I'm used to big strong fellas like you thinking you're indestructible. And for what it's worth, I've been around the block once or twice in my medical career. You're definitely not my first patient."

Flint gave a quiet chuckle. She was certainly no back number.

"Sorry," he said. "You just don't strike me as the typical military doctor, that's all."

"Youth is my curse," she said, giving him a genuine smile.

Bill entered the treatment room pushing a wheelchair. "You call for a transport?"

"This is twice you've given me a ride, cowboy," Flint said, the fog in his brain beginning to lift.

Bill smiled. "Don't worry – I'm keeping track of the IOU's. You're going to owe me a lot of beers when this is all over."

Suarez helped Flint sit up in bed, holding on to his arm as his feet touched the floor. His legs felt like rubber, buckling under him when he tried to put his full weight on them. The world suddenly tilted. She was stronger than he had expected, keeping him from crashing to the floor and getting him steadied against the edge of the gurney. Bill abandoned the wheelchair and was on the other side of Flint, taking hold of an arm, as well.

"Whoa," Flint breathed. The room was spinning wildly.

"Get your bearings," she said, still holding on to him in support. "It'll pass in a second."

He waited a second, then gave it another for good measure. "It's not passing," he said, closing his eyes and feeling a slight panic well in the pit of his stomach.

Suarez turned to Bill. "Help me get him back on the bed."

Together, they helped Flint sit back on the gurney. He lay back of his own accord, for once not having to have been told to do so by any medical personnel. A tiny wave of nausea poked at his insides as the swirl continued.

Suarez removed a scope from the wall and turned on its light. She moved Flint's head to the side and looked first in his right ear, then his left.

"You have fluid in your right ear. Probably river water," she reported, ejecting the cone from the scope and putting the instrument back in its holder on the wall. "I can give you something for the dizziness until it drains, but it may make you groggy."

The whirl increased. Flint instinctively grabbed on to whatever was in reach of his hands for support. His fingers clutched the sheets of the gurney tightly.

"Whatever you say, Doc. Just stop the world so I can get off."

A few moments later, he felt the sting of a needle in his arm as Suarez injected him with medication.

"Give it a minute or two," she admonished. "It'll stop the dizziness."

Her hand was warm on his as she waited for him to calm. It took a bit longer than she had estimated, but the dizziness and nausea eventually passed. He gathered the courage to open his eyes, finding the room was steady and still. Suarez looked down at him.

"Better?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said, feeling the beginning of sedation settling in on his brain.

She sat him up, but it was not as traumatic this time. Bill took hold of him and put him in the wheelchair, Suarez following with a blanket. Doctor Suarez gave Flint a once-over before telling Bill it was okay to proceed. They entered the hall. The cool air sent a chill through Flint again. He pulled the blanket up high to cover his arms where the feeling was the worst. They took the elevator to the ICU floor.

It was even quieter there. They passed two of those who had been wounded that day, with Suarez quickly explaining that they had been admitted to the unit as a precaution. Then, they were at Lady Jaye's room.

The door was closed, blocking Flint's view of the room. She knelt down next to him.

"I want to prepare you for what you're going to see, Flint. She's on life support, which means she's hooked up to a lot of machines."

He had seen it before with others. He hated the whole idea, but he realized it was necessary. At that point, anything that was keeping Allison alive was all right with him.

"I'm ready," he told her quietly.

She stood and opened the door. Bill wheeled Flint forward. For as much as he thought he was prepared for what it would look like, Flint was still taken off-guard with what he saw. Air vanished from his lungs at the scene before him.

She lay there, in a darkened room, pale and unmoving. Bill pushed him closer to her bedside. Flint was overwhelmed with what he was seeing, but Suarez was at his side to explain it. She knelt down next to him again. He reached out and took Allison's hand in his, feeling how cold it still was. IV bags hung on the other side of the bed, the lines snaking down like jungle vines. One of them was starkly crimson, a transfusion that was an effort to replace the blood she had lost.

"She's sedated, so don't be upset that you don't get a response from her," Suarez said. "We do that because we don't want her fighting us."

"She looks horrible," Flint breathed, seeing Allison's pallor.

"I know," the young doctor said, "but that will get better with time."

The ventilator pushed air into Allison's lungs at regular intervals, the swish of the pump occupying most of the sound in the room. The monitors silently reported her beating heart, the readings certainly steadier and stronger than they had been onboard the rescue helo.

"She has a chest tube on the other side," Suarez continued. "That's to keep the fluid from building up where Doc operated. So, just be careful not to disturb it when you're here."

"This is insane," he said so quietly.

"I know it seems that way, but she has a good chance at a full recovery," Suarez said.

The word hit him with a force so full he had to look away. "'Chance'…"

"Flint," Suarez said more firmly, making no attempt to hide her annoyance, "she needs positive thinking and reinforcement. If you're going to be in here, then that is your responsibility. You got her this far. Don't give up now."

He studied Allison's hand in his, realizing how delicate it was. "You're right," he said, nodding. He forced himself to find a sense of resolve. "You're right."

Suarez stood up again. "I'll give you some time with her, but then you're back to bed."

Then he was alone in the room. Bill had quietly closed the door behind him as he left. Flint looked at her fully for the first time, drinking in the details. The staff had cleaned her up since they received her. The dirt had been wiped from her face and arms. He could still see a rim of black under her fingernails from where she had clawed to get out of the line of fire after being hit. He smiled inwardly, knowing she would have been cringing, scraping her nails clean if she were awake. She had the cleanest fingernails of anyone he had ever seen, except maybe when she was cleaning weapons. Even then, the dirt and grime never had a chance to take root.

He cradled her hand between his palms. He said nothing, afraid that he could not utter the right words that would bring her back sooner. Maybe he would say the wrong thing at the wrong time that would change fate. It was safer to say nothing at all, hoping that her feeling his hands on her was enough.

Flint's eyes felt heavy. The effect of whatever Suarez had given him enveloping his senses in a cloud of thick operation. He put his arm on the bed, resting his head and curling her fingers around his hand as he watched her breathe in a rhythmic motion. Then his eyes closed, and he drifted off to sleep.

_He leaned against the jeep, chewing on a piece of hay from the field, watching the communications engineers do whatever it was that communications engineers did on missions like this. No matter, the view of the mountains beat the stiffness of a political detail any day._

_Flint looked around at the operation. It was going smoothly. Dornan, an engineering sergeant, had assured him they would complete the surveillance project on time, if not early. That was a good thing, Flint thought. It would get them back to base early, in time for dinner. He would ask Allison out that night, time permitting. He knew where they could go if she would only agree._

_He looked for her and found her walking toward him, clipboard in hand as she scribbled notes. He made it a point to not make eye contact with her. When she neared him, she stopped and looked up at him._

"_What are you up to, tough guy?" she asked._

"_Just contemplating what you wear under your regulation issues," he answered, keeping his eyes trained on the engineers._

"_Stop torturing yourself, Dash," she warned. "It's not going to happen . . . again."_

"_That's a shame," he said. "What about dinner? Can we at least try that?"_

_She looked up at him with her eyes, keeping pen to paper. "Say the word with me – 'fraternization'. If they find out, believe me, it's the enlisted one who's going to get busted in the chops, not the semi-officer-type. Sorry, but I'll pass."_

_He let out a laugh at her self-control. Unfortunately, it was one of the things that attracted him so much to her. He finally looked at her and saw her cheeks were tinted with a red glow._

"_You're blushing," he accused, very sure of himself._

_She lowered the clipboard. "I am not," Jaye said defensively._

"_Sure you are. Look in the mirror," he said, pointing to the large side mirrors on the jeep._

_She took him up on the challenge, peering around to the glass. She studied her reflection, her hand eventually going to her face in an effort to rub away the color._

"_Told you," he mocked._

_He saw her smile reflected in mirror. Their eyes locked as she looked at his inverted image. Flint felt his heart hammer in his chest as it did at certain moments like that._

_They saw it at the same time in the mirror. The streaking missile with its plume of exhaust rocketed toward them from the sky in a swooping downward arc in the late afternoon sky. Flint turned quickly to see the real thing coming toward his location, heading right for the jeep._

_There was no time for a warning. Lady Jaye was already on the run away from the vehicle. Flint dug it out as fast as he could before the weapon struck near the jeep. The jeep bounced up into the air and came down hard on its side. He was knocked off his feet, rolling a good ten yards before he came to a stop._

_The Rattlers swept down toward the surveillance complex, firing their nose guns at anything they could hit. The dish on the top of the station was the first to go, followed by a storage shed that was obliterated in a spray of shrapnel by the power of the guns._

_Flint grabbed for his radio. "Echo One to Eagle Watch! We're under attack!"_

_Eagle Watch, the Sky Striker team assigned to fly cover, responded. "Eagle Watch lead to Echo One, we see it. Diverting to your location."_

_Flint looked skyward for the three Strikers. He found them east, turning in formation in the distance against the backdrop of snowcapped mountains. It was almost picture perfect the way they turned with complete precision. They were going after the Rattlers who were coming around for a second pass._

"_Go get 'em, boys!" Flint shouted as he watched them approach._

_The left Striker suddenly veered off, black smoke trailing from its tail. A Night Raven followed it, continuing to fire. Something caught Flint's eye from the right. A black dot appeared on the horizon. Then, a missile streaked laterally toward the lead Striker. The lead banked right in time for the missile to impact the left wing and send the aircraft careening out of control._

_The right Striker pulled up hard, going vertical and arcing backward, trying to get tone in the ambush. Flint watched as a Night Raven appeared out of nowhere and tightened the pursuit, following the Striker all the way. When they neared the top of the maneuver, the Raven let go with a shot, hitting the Striker in the tail. It slid like a sidewinder in the air until the pilot could no longer control it, ejecting from the cockpit before the jet exploded into flaming debris._

Flint awoke with a start, his vision skewed by what he saw in his dream. He looked around the room, finding Jaye as he had left her when he fell asleep. Her hand was still curled into his. His heart was pounding in his chest from the memory of the attack, but his experience and discipline told him to replay the dream in his mind. He had seen the missing factor.

"I'll be back," he said standing out of the wheelchair. He kissed her gently on the forehead.

He tore out of the room and headed for the command center. Suarez and Bill were at the ICU desk when he blew by them with a quick trot.

"Flint!" Bill called after him, beginning pursuit.

Flint did not stop. He had to get to the command center. He heard Bill trailing after him, calling his name. The elevator was at the end of the hall. He slammed his hand on the button several times, willing it to arrive faster. The silver doors remained closed, moving too slow for Flint's liking.

Bill finally caught up to him. "Flint! What in the hell is the matter with you?"

"I know why we didn't see those planes," Flint said, looking up at the line of numbers above the elevator doors, watching as they counted down to his floor.

"Let's hear it."

"Not here. We need to get back to the command center."

Bill respected Flint's wishes and Hawk's standing order. He did not probe for any more answers as they rode the elevator to the ground floor. Flint took off toward the command center at a clip. He rushed toward the briefing room, looking for Mainframe. He found Scarlett with the tech, poring over data from the day's events.

"Good, you're both here," he said, closing the door once Bill was inside the room.

Scarlett looked up from her workstation. "Aren't you supposed to be horizontal in the infirmary?"

"Later," he said. "I need to see the playback of the radar from today. I need to see just before they were engaged."

Scarlett raised her eyebrows, surrendering. "Okay, but we've looked at it a hundred times already. There's nothing there."

He maintained his patience. "Just play it."

She called up the record, displaying it on the large screens. He watched the icons that represented the Strikers on patrol. They flew a standard formation, a standard overwatch protection pattern.

"Can we hear a communications playback with this?" Flint asked, watching the screen.

"Sure," Mainframe said, turning back to his terminal. Within a few seconds, the dialogue from the Strikers was synchronized to the patterns on the screen.

Flint heard his own voice, just as it had been in the dream.

"_Echo One to Eagle Watch! We're under attack!"_

"_Eagle Watch lead to Echo One, we see it. Diverting to your location."_

Flint watched the radar playback, correlating their movements on the screen with the real-life images in his mind. Four red icons appeared at Flint's location on the screen, coinciding with the moment the ops team was attacked.

The audio switched to the Striker cockpit conversations.

"Eagles Two and Three, look lively. There's fish in the barrel."

"_Eagle Two, I hear you, Dauby!"_

"_Eagle Three, let me at 'em, Dauby!"_

Flint remembered meeting with the pilots of the squadron before the mission. Dauby, the flight's lead, was confident. His two wingmen, Flusher and Cat, were typical jet jockeys that lived for the engagement. It took a commander like Dauby to keep them in line in the air. Flint liked confident pilots, even if their arrogance sometimes got the better of those in the infantry.

He listened to Dauby directing his squadron.

"Contact, bearing one-eight-zero. Looks like some little Rattlers are picking on our friends. Let's do it."

The formation swept forward at Dauby's command, the icons on the playback moving in a delta toward the Rattlers, with Dauby in the lead. Cat was port side, Flusher starboard with their wing leader.

There was a pause of silence as they began to engage the Rattlers. Then he heard the moment when it all changed.

"_Eagle Three, I'm hit! I'm hit!"_

"_Break off! Break off!"_

Flusher tried pulling out of the formation to get out of the line of fire. His icon suddenly blanked off the screen. A red icon, indicating an aircraft without IFF showed up on the screen. It was on Flusher's tail until the pilot's plane was lost.

"_Dauby! Break right!"_

Another red icon suddenly appeared to the south further out of the engagement area.

There was a slight shift of Dauby's icon with Cat's warning before it, too, disappeared.

Cat seemed to stay on course, but the altimeter reading for it increased as she pulled the plane into a hard vertical climb. One last red icon appeared, practically on top of the green icon of Cat's plane. She grunted against the high G's she was pulling in the climb, trying to evade the Ravens.

"_Oh shi . . ."_

As the last plane disappeared from the screen, so did the red icons. They were gone as soon as they had appeared.

Flint was scarcely breathing. It was intense to listen to pilots losing their planes and nearly their lives. The whole transaction had taken less than a minute.

Mainframe stopped the playback. "That's why we couldn't warn you. It happened so fast."

Flint ran his hand through his hair, staring at the screen. "Show the playback of Bill's evac," he said softly, grappling with the emotions that churned in his head.

"Flint," Mainframe said, hedging, "there's nothing there. We went back and looked at it. The Ravens showed up, but the Strikers you said you saw don't show up at all. No IFF and no signatures were picked up on the sensors."

Scarlett sat down next to Flint. "If we had seen the Rattlers and Ravens earlier, we would have warned you, but the systems just didn't see them," she said, apologetic.

Snippets of his dream clicked in his brain, firing off in rapid sequence until he knew the answer. Black dots appearing on the horizon, Ravens popping up behind their targets, in perfect kill positions – he saw it again and again in his head.

"That's because they were never there," he said finally.

He saw Scarlett sneak a surreptitious glance at Bill. "They were never there?"

He realized how it must have sounded and corrected himself, trying to piece it all together. "They were there," he said, "but they weren't there until just when they showed up on radar. It looks to you like they came out of nowhere because that's exactly what they did. They appeared out of thin air."

"Are you sure?" Scarlett asked, as if he did not believe him.

"I was there!" he snapped at her. "I know what I saw!"

Scarlett bristled at his outburst but then softened. "I believe you, Flint, but I just don't see how it's possible. Stealth technology would explain why we didn't see them on sensors, but that wouldn't explain what you saw."

"I'm not saying I have the answers, but there has to be something in the readings that can tell us what happened. The bombs were real, the bullets were real, and everything in the air was real."

Bill leaned against the conference table, hooking his thumbs in his belt. "Well, at least the door swings both ways. We had bad guys _and_ good guys doing Houdinis up there."

Scarlett looked at Mainframe. "Any suggestions?"

Mainframe shrugged. "We could run a level three diagnostic and see if there's anything out of the ordinary or cached, but it's a long shot. We have sensors to detect the sensors. If something was haywire, we'd have seen it by now."

"Run the diagnostic," Scarlett said to Mainframe.

Flint felt the order was more an effort to pacify him, but he was satisfied that more digging would be done into the incident. He wanted answers, and he was willing to use whatever means necessary to get to them. Scarlett was good at her job, thorough even when not necessary. He trusted she would see to it that Mainframe ran the diagnostics.

He looked at her, saw the stress in her eyes. Allison was her friend, a comrade beyond the terror war. They had bonded with one another in the face of a male-dominated organization, expected to pull their own weight and be productive in combat situations. Scarlett had even gone so far as to cover for Allison and Flint's relationship to some degree, downplaying the entire issue with various commanders, with almost as much risk to her career as it had been to theirs. He had no right to snap at her and felt remorse.

"It's going to take a while," Scarlett said to Flint. She looked down at a pile of folders on the table. "I could use some help in the personnel files. Since you're at the infirmary, why don't you take the medical personnel and go through those files?"

He looked at the stack of twenty or so folders. It would at least be helping the cause, he figured. He reached out for them, but Bill was there to get them for him.

"Let me get those for you, partner," he said, scooping the pile off the table. He moved toward the door.

"Bill, bring those here," Flint demanded.

Bill shook his head. "You get them when you're back in the infirmary. I've already gotten my butt in a sling once today. I don't need more parts of me in trouble. Hawk says you're supposed to be in the infirmary, and that's where you're going." He began inching out the door, waiting for Flint to follow.

"Now, there's true friendship," Scarlett said, "butt-slinging and all."

Flint was outnumbered by those he called friends. He knew he had been harsh with them, the kind of atypical team member he had always hated. They were trying to help him, he knew, but it was just so damned frustrating sometimes.

For the second time that day, Bill followed him out of the command center and back to the infirmary. This time, though, they returned to the ICU where Flint found a reclining chair in Allison's room, next to her bed. He sat back in it, feeling impossibly exhausted again. With one hand, Bill put a blanket on him once more. Then he placed the stack of folders on Flint's lap and said nothing. He only nodded at Flint, reaching out to touch Lady Jaye's hand for an extended moment.

For the first time, Flint saw Bill at a loss for words. He watched Bill study the scene, seeing the machines, taking in the sounds of Lady Jaye's state for the first time. He and Flint had been out one night, having a few beers when Bill had spoken of how being a pilot made him a part of the glory without the fuss. He never had to worry about blood on his hands or about cleaning up the aftermath of a battle, he said. All he had to do was fly in and fly out, delivering a load or doing a pickup when necessary. For a long time, Flint felt that Bill was one of the coolest cucumbers in the flying forces of the Joes. It was only at that moment that he realized even cowboys had feelings.

Bill broke contact and looked down at Flint. "Do me a favor and stay put, will you? I need to be able to trust you're not going to do something stupid. Read those files and keep your kiester planted in that chair for a while so I can get some rack time."

Flint smiled at Bill's way with words. "Scout's honor."

He watched as Bill walked down the hall. Flint opened the first file folder, not really having a clue what he was looking for in terms of deciphering what constituted a mole. He began at the top of the page, reading each line of information. The words seemed to cross over one another as he neared the middle of the page. He put his head back, determined to rest his eyes as he felt the tiny onset of the swirling sensation in his head. All he needed was to rest his eyes.

For just a moment.


	4. Chapter 4

Author's Notes:

5 Sept 05 – Eek! It needed more description. So, if you read this the first night I posted it, sorry. There are a few things to read. Most of it is descriptive from Flint's POV, but there may be some minor plot details that were omitted in the first round of writing that will come into play a little down the road. Thanks!

3 Sept 05 - One of the things I always loved about G.I. Joe was that Cobra could get his hands on some of the most fantastic, dastardly things. Some things never change . . .

Once again, this is a fresh, unedited post. Thanks!

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Chapter 4

Flint felt a tickle down his neck. It felt like a bug. He reached up to brush it away when his mind registered that it was not a bug at all. It was wet, trickling slowly through the tiny hairs toward his collarbone. He awoke quickly and looked at his fingers. The clear liquid glistened on his fingertips. He traced the path on his neck back to his ear. The river water had found a way to escape his eardrum, just as Suarez had predicted.

He heard the voices of the next shift taking over at the duty station in the hall. The sun was beginning to rise, sending a soft light through the window. He blinked his eyes, trying to get moisture back in them. He looked over at Allison. Not much had changed since the previous night, except some color had returned to her face. He noticed that she was no longer receiving a transfusion, which he took to be a good thing.

A nurse stepped into the room, smiling at him. She was older, experienced. She entered the room in a flourish, purposeful in her work as many in the ward did. He sensed her upbeat manner and welcomed the contrast it brought to the devastation that had consumed him the last fourteen hours.

"Good morning, sir," she said with smile, her voice cheerful. "I'm Joanne. I'll be her nurse for the shift. How are you?"

He stifled a yawn, stretching out his legs, grabbing on to the file folders before they slid to the floor. "I'll be better if you give me some good news."

"Well," she said, approaching the bed, "I'm sure it's not going to sound like much, but she's stable. There don't appear to be any additional bleeds, and she's holding her own."

"But?"

"But," she said, matter-of-factly, "she's been put through the wringer. Just going to take time."

"How long will she be out of it?"

"Depends," Joanne said, checking the dosage levels on the IV machine. "Sometimes, these things don't happen on our schedule. The patient has a lot to do with it." She looked over at him out of the corner of her eye. "How are you feeling this morning?"

"I'm all right," he said, even though it was a flat-out lie.

"That's good to hear, because from the looks of you, I'd say you felt like hell."

He smiled at her forwardness. She was a veteran, a good judge of what was appropriate to say.

"I've felt better," he admitted.

She rounded the bed and approached him, beginning to check on him.

"What are you doing?" he asked, as she felt for a pulse on his wrist.

"Well, technically, you're still a patient in this hospital. Since you're in this room, that makes you my patient. That means I have to keep an eye on you until Doctor Suarez releases you for duty."

He allowed her to continue, having the distinct feeling it would have been useless to resist her efforts.

"Doctor Suarez is new around here?"

"Been here a few months," she said. "Very good with the patients. The staff likes her," she said, reaching for a blood pressure cuff on the wall. "Any chills this morning?"

"No," he said, obliging her by pulling up his sleeve. "Feeling a lot better today."

"Good," she said as she continued her examination. "Hypothermia can take it out of you, so just make sure you get enough rest."

"I will," he said. "Am I free to go get a cup of coffee, or will you send the hounds out after me?"

She smiled again, removing the cuff. "Just make sure we can take a gander at you every now and then, and no running off to a firefight."

"I'll keep that in mind. You'll have me paged if anything changes?"

"Not a problem."

"Thanks."

He pulled the blanket off his legs, scooping up the file folders. He stood and neared the bed as Joanne exited. He looked down at Jaye, running the back of his hand across her cheek. She was warm – much warmer than she had been the night before when he held her on the riverbed. He hated to leave her, but the idea that someone had put her in that bed gnawed at him, angering him. Someone had sold out the team. Someone had nearly gotten them all killed, and that someone was most likely walking among them – eating with them, sleeping in the same barracks, interacting with others like they were part of the group when the real goal had been betrayal.

He could put aside the physical misery he felt. He noticed a myriad of bruises on his legs when he had been ordered to get into to dry clothes. The river had been rough. He had been slammed several times against unforgiving rocks and boulders. Bruises healed in time, though. He believed that Allison would recover in time, too, because he had no other choice. To lose her was not an acceptable outcome – not when they had fought so hard to make it out alive.

As much as he did not want to, he knew he had to leave her for at least a little while to begin researching the personnel records Scarlett had given him. He doubted he would find any earth-shattering information in them. With the exception of team medics, it was unlikely hospital workers were in a position to absorb covert information. They were not privy to any mission briefings, nor did they did not have access to the command center. They did their jobs, and they did them well. He had seen that firsthand the night before when they gathered to take on a new patient on the tarmac. They were eager to do a good job and save lives.

Still, he decided, it was good to cover all the bases. If anything, he would be doing the infirmary staff a favor by clearing them early in the investigation. The last thing anyone needed was a bureaucrat from Washington prying around the base, looking for any anomalies without a clue as to what it meant to be a part of the unique anti-terrorist operation. He would read the files, he told himself, grab a shower and be back in an hour or two. It would at least take his mind of seeing Allison in her present state. He would be helping to narrow the investigation by chipping in and doing something productive, by being productive – not making things worse, as Suarez had warned.

"I'll be back," he whispered to her.

He tucked the files under his arm and headed out the door. He passed by the rooms that housed the other two critical patients from the mountain battle. They were awake, seemingly in good spirits. He stopped in to see them both. Private Kelly and Private Osterman were faring well, glad that they were going to be moved to regular room.

Kelly and Osterman. He repeated the names in his head so that he would not forget. He would make it a point to check up on them later on when they were out of the ICU and into their own rooms.

The cafeteria was emptying out after the morning breakfast rush. He got a tall cup of coffee and found a table in the far corner that was away from the remaining patrons. He put the files on the table, sliding the first folder off the stack and opening it. He had tried to read it the night before, but his body simply refused to allow it. Now, he was more awake and rested. He could concentrate, he knew, on the information and make heads or tails of it.

The information he read in each file at first was dull and expected. Names, ranks, serial numbers, postings history – the files read to Flint like they should have. Security had tacked on background check reports to the last page of the files. Most of the information was benign and dull. The hospital staff was composed of those with exemplary service. The worst he saw was one corpsman with outstanding parking tickets.

He thumbed through the name tabs on the folder covers, searching for Suarez's file. He could not help but be intrigued by her. She was young and in charge of her work. She actually seemed too young to be on the Joe roster. He knew it was probably a matter of her youthful looks, but the team was comprised of veterans, and she did not strike him as one. He could not imagine her having gone through the same ordeals as Doc or Lifeline in the heat of battle. Suarez looked more the cleanup hitter, the one who dealt with the aftermath of action. He wondered if she had even been on combat duty. Her records would tell the whole story, he knew. Central Security was thorough in its job, giving commanders the luxury of knowing everything about a soldier that might affect an operation. Suarez had, without a doubt, been checked out, and he would read all he could about her before he passed additional judgment on her abilities.

He pushed through the folders to the last one in the stack. Her name was nowhere to be found in the group of files. He searched again, sure he had missed it, but the folder was not in the stack. It had been the jacket he most wanted to read, but security had evidently forgotten to pull her file. Frustrated, Flint gathered up the folders once more and headed for the doors to the compound.

The command center was busy. The day staff outnumbered the night staff two to one in most sections. He carefully dodged anyone who might question his presence in the center as to why he was not still in the infirmary. His office was located before the main command center, allowing him to slip in unnoticed to anyone except security guards who admitted him without question.

He closed the door to his office, locking it. His desk was a mess. Paperwork was piled in strategic mountains that he had warned his secretary not to move. He maneuvered one pile to another clear space so he could reach the keyboard of his computer. He logged into the security database that contained the profiles of everyone assigned to the base and, indeed, every member of the Joe team. After two unsuccessful attempts, he managed to key in Suarez's name without a typo, activating the search for her records.

He turned away from the monitor, looking for a notepad. He found one and turned around again, expecting her profile to be on the screen. Instead, he found a flashing red message stating no records could be found. He gave a shake of his head, frustrated that he could not type on a good day, let alone when he had been through so much in less than twenty-four hours. He entered the search again, but the same message appeared.

His frustration mounted. He picked up the phone and called Central Security, asking for one of them to call up the record for him.

"I'm sorry, sir," the operator said, "That name isn't in our database. There is no Doctor Suarez assigned to your location."

Flint was speechless.

"Would you like me to conduct an extended records search, sir?"

It took a moment for Flint to answer as his thoughts raged. "Yeah, I would. Send me what you find, my eyes only."

"Understood."

Flint left his office in a flourish. He went straight to the emergency entrance of the infirmary, stopping at the desk.

"I'm looking for Doctor Suarez," he told the triage nurse.

"You just missed her, sir. You might try the roof. She goes up there a lot on her breaks."

"Thanks," he said, turning.

He knew the way up to the roof. He had been there a couple of times when he needed to think. There was a small patio with chairs and tables where workers and patients could go for some fresh air. The view of the mountains was unobstructed and extraordinary. He climbed the stairs leading to it, spotting Suarez sitting all alone at the table. The day was brilliantly clear, not a cloud in the blue sky.

A white puff of smoke caught on the breeze as she lit a cigarette. He approached her quietly from behind, taking careful steps so as not to be heard. His heart pounded with anticipation of the encounter. He neared her, observing her for a moment.

"I'll bet you have a lot of questions, Flint," she said, still facing away from him.

He had no idea how she knew he was there. It took a moment for him to figure out what to say or how to approach her.

"A few," he said simply, taking enough steps to be next to her. "I thought doctors weren't supposed to smoke?"

"They're not, but hell – you only live once." She took another puff.

"Who are you?"

"I thought the name tag said it all." She pulled over a chair. "Take a load off, chief."

He sat down slowly, watching her. "You didn't answer the question."

"No, really – I am Doctor Suarez," she said, flicking an ash off her cigarette.

"You don't seem to exist."

She looked upward, pondering. "In theory, no."

His patience was running thin. He had the urge to take her into custody right then and there, but he sensed this might be the only time he would get to interrogate her on his own. "These one-liners are getting old, doc. I'm going to ask you one last time – who are you?"

She sat back in the chair and looked over at him casually. "You don't really expect me to lay it all out for you, do you?"

"Either you tell me, or I'm going to have someone pound it out of you."

She took another drag on her cigarette, exhaling as she spoke. "Like that would do any good. You're way out of your league."

His anger rose. "Don't test me, lady. I'm not in the mood."

"I know you're not," she said, not in the least intimidated by his tone. "But there are some things you're just not meant to know in life. There are a finite number of things you should be worried about right now. Who I am is not one of them."

"You're topping the list, actually."

"Well," she said, rubbing at her eyes with a thumb and forefinger, "some things are unavoidable, I suppose. Still doesn't change the fact that your focus is on the wrong thing right now."

He decided to play in to her game. "What should I be concentrating on, then?"

She crossed her legs and leaned toward him casually, pulling on the cigarette until the tip turned a bright orange. "Cobra."

"We're always concerned about Cobra. That's why we exist. Try again."

"Your sworn enemy is up to no good, making a pact with the devil. If you don't put a stop to it, it'll change the course of history like you couldn't imagine."

"I'm listening."

She stubbed out the cigarette. "Have you figured out how those Ravens hit the overwatch yet?"

"No," he answered, drinking in the fact that she had firsthand knowledge of the mission.

She thought for a moment. "You fish a lot, Flint?"

"Used to," he obliged.

"You know when you cast out, and that bobber hits the water? There's a big splash and rings of ripples flow outward. You and I are on the far outside rings right now. Cobra is dead center, making the big splash."

He shook his head in disbelief. "Who are you?" he asked, almost in a plea.

"I'm the yin to Cobra's yang," she answered. "I'm here to make things right."

He laughed, shaking his head as her meaning dawned on him. "This is rich. Let me guess – you're a time traveler?"

"That's a very clichéd term, but whatever," she said dismissively. "I prefer 'temporal enforcement officer', myself."

He shook his head again. "I don't know whether to lock you up or have you committed."

"You could try either, but it won't do you any good. The only thing that will benefit you right now is to listen to me."

"Oh, I'm all ears, doc. Lay it on me."

She straightened in the chair, stretching her back. "Okay, here's how it plays out. My job, quite a ways down the road, is to sit at a desk and watch the past. We look for things that change unexpectedly from a known outcome. And before you even ask," she said, holding up a hand, "don't ask me how we know the expected outcome. Just assume we do."

"Who is 'we'?"

"Others, like myself. We're sort of an agency, government sanctioned. The point is, the expected outcome has changed. Someone has an ace up their sleeve and is cheating. Cobra is the card that's being played."

"In the future or in the present?"

"Let's just say that Cobra is being used as a tool to affect the future. That surveillance strike was just the beginning. If you don't put a stop to it, you're going to be picked apart until you kiss the free world as you know it goodbye."

"So, if Cobra is in our time, who's in yours?"

"Can't tell you that. Then again, I never said it was in my time, did I? Look," she said with an air of detente, "I walk a very fine line in my job. We're big on non-interference in most cases. It takes a lot for us to decide to intercede on the behalf of a timeline. The rules are very specific. We have to make the case that actions occur close enough to the big splash to justify righting things."

"The Strikers?"

She gave another shrug. "My idea. The monitoring station would have been destroyed anyway. But the Rattlers were close enough to the splash. All I did was buy you a little more time and even the odds. You all would have made it, believe it or not – just not with the same outcome."

"So the point of you being here is to put things back the way they should be?"

"Not possible," she said, lighting another cigarette. "The best we can do is add circumstances that influence the outcome to align is as closely as possible to the original. In this case, I'm here to help you take away what Cobra was given to annihilate you."

"And what might that be?"

"You know that little problem you had with the Rattlers and Ravens? Well, Cobra is dabbling in temporal rifts, and not too far down the road. If you don't take away his toys now, it's only going to get worse."

A breeze kicked up, the chilled air of impending winter bearing down on the valley. Suarez closed her eyes, taking a deep breath.

"It's been a long time since I breathed fresh air. You're very fortunate in this era."

He could not have cared less about her personal opinion of the environment. "Let's not change the subject. I'm assuming Cobra sends fighters back through time to specific spots, correct?"

"Correct."

"So, why the hit and runs? Why not a massive strike that wipes us out completely?"

"Well, Cobra's benefactor is under much the same constraint I am about revealing too much. If you reveal too much, you alter your own future, which is not a good thing no matter whose side you're on. So, at this point, Cobra is only allowed to take baby steps instead of jogging all over your backs. Remember, we're talking about preserving a timeline of power."

"Assuming I'm not the one who should be committed for buying into this story, does that mean you're going to give us the same advantage?"

She smiled. "Not a chance in hell. It's bad enough we have one group rifting. I can guide you in certain directions, but it will be up to you to right things."

"But I'm not allowed to tell anyone about you or what you're doing here or where you come from, right?" he challenged.

She looked at him intently. "You were chosen for a reason, Flint. You're the one I calculated could be trusted the most to bring things back into alignment without causing new problems."

"I have to let them know to some degree," he argued. "There are going to be a lot of operational questions."

She sighed. "Let me put it to you this way – when too many people know what you now know, it's a lot like juggling kittens. It can be done, but not without scars. The timeline has enough wounds. Don't add more than has already been inflicted."

He continued to pry for additional information. "Then how do I explain this to them? I can't just mobilize a unit without justification."

"You tell them you have a confidential informant in Cobra. No one ever said confidential informants had to identify themselves. And," she said, pulling a folded paper from her pocket, "you can give them this." She handed it to Flint.

He unfolded the paper. It was a printout of satellite imagery. He looked closely at it. At first, all he saw was a mountainous region. Then, he looked closer, the details finally revealing themselves. The base in the center had all the style of a Cobra installation. It was small, almost undetectable, but it was clear that vehicles had made their way in and out of what should have been an unoccupied area.

"This isn't too far from the surveillance base," he said, noting the location.

"Ding, you win the prize!" she said, like a carnival game caller.

"We were too close for comfort up there. They had to take us out," he said, the realization of her story sinking in to his thoughts.

"And now you need to take out Cobra's base before it goes operational. No one can come back to haunt you if they can never get to the past."

He studied the image again. There was no doubt that there was a base where there should not have been one, but there was no way to know the picture's authenticity. He would have Mainframe take a look as soon as possible, but Flint wanted his time with Suarez. She intimated telling others would be a bad thing, but that could have simply been a trick, he knew, to keep things under wraps.

He weighed the facts in his mind, quickly doing the math as she laid it all out for him. If she was lying, she was going to get some people killed. If she was telling the truth, it would be one of the few times in the history of Joe warfare that they had been given a heads-up about an impending attack. Moreover, they could not only defend themselves – they could do a pre-emptive strike.

"How do we get in there?"

She winced. "Eh, that's the kicker. What you have to destroy is deep, to put it mildly. Forget conventional bombing. This is a ground operation, and you're going to lead it."

"Sure," he said, sardonically. "I'll just call a few of the guys and we'll go knock on their door."

"I wouldn't recommend it," she said, playing right along. "But a very small team would get the job done."

"And what about you? Do you just magically disappear when the job is done? Or do you stick around on trips like this to breathe the air and take in the sights?"

"Well," she said, thoughtfully, "theoretically, I could ride to hell on horseback, but I really am bound by an ethics code. I do have to see the job through to the end. What happens to me from there is, again, something you can't know."

He rubbed at the whole of his face with his hand. "This is unreal."

"It's very real, Flint," she said. "The price is damned high if you fail. The choice is yours."

His eyes closed, his mind desperately trying to find a thread of reality which to cling in the midst of what he had been told. "You're asking me to believe in science fiction," he said, looking at her once more.

"I'm asking you to do the right thing," she gently countered. She looked down at his belt. "You better answer that."

"Answer what?"

And then his pager began to beep.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Flint jumped at the pager's alarm. He snatched it off his belt and looked at the message, his blood running cold. He looked at Suarez who stared at him, eyes unblinking.

The ICU had sent him an emergency page.

"What's happening?" he demanded.

"It's called an evolution, Flint. When timelines change, there can be unscheduled events."

He nearly leapt out of the chair, clutching the collar of her lab coat. "What is happening to her!"

If Suarez felt fear, she did not show it. "I don't know."

He yanked her out of the chair and pushed her toward the steps. "Get going," he ordered.

Suarez complied, not fighting him. Together they made their way toward the ICU. Flint found it difficult to control his anger as they walked at a brisk pace. He resisted the urge to physically push her down the halls, knowing it would have caused a scene and questions with the staff. Her cooperation was the only thing holding him back as they navigated through the morning hospital traffic.

On her own, she headed for the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time up to the ICU floor. Flint wanted to run ahead, but he had no intention of letting Suarez out of his sight. She obliged his anxiety by walking at his side, matching his hurried pace.

They reached the desk area. Flint looked into Jaye's room, only to find the bed gone, the monitors dark.

Joanne, the morning nurse, met them in the hall. "There's been a complication," she said before Flint even asked. "She may be bleeding internally again."

"How?" Flint asked, finding it difficult to give his voice volume.

"Doc thinks a piece of shrapnel may have nicked another part of the artery, weakening it. It's possible the tissue finally gave way. He has her in surgery right now."

"How bad is it?" he dared to ask.

Joanne gave a small frown. "It's very serious."

Flint felt as though the breath had left his lungs. "Thank you," he managed. When Joanne had left them, he turned to Suarez. "Follow me," he said low.

There was a small conference room down the hall he had seen earlier in his travels. He led her to it, checking first to make sure it was empty. He invited her inside and closed the door, resting his head on the frame.

In a whirl of anger and anguish, he turned and pinned Suarez to the wall. She gave an involuntary yelp as her back slammed against the drywall. He held his forearm tight across her shoulders, easily trapping her small frame.

"What did you do!" he exclaimed through clenched teeth.

"I told you, Flint – it's an evolution," she said, unwavering against his assault. "It's an unscheduled event in a new timeline."

"How did you know my pager was going to go off?" he asked, jabbing his arm against her in anger.

"It was close enough to the big splash. It's a known outcome."

"What happens to her?"

"I don't know."

"Don't lie to me!"

"I don't know!" she said adamantly.

"You did this!"

"There is a reason you survived, Flint. If you don't do something, this will have been worthless and she suffers for nothing."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that should be you in that bed, not her!" Suarez pushed back against the pressure of his arm. "If you'll get your arm out of my lungs, I'll explain this as best I can."

He really did not want to release her. There was something satisfying about jamming her into a wall until it hurt. He reluctantly let her go. She rubbed at her clavicle with her hand. He could see a red mark that was bound to leave a bruise on her skin.

She sat down at the conference table, waiting patiently until he did the same.

"You have one shot at this, lady, before I go ballistic on you," he warned, trying to bring his emotions under control.

Suarez took a few seconds to compose herself.

"We did mass permutations of outcomes," she said. "We tried to find the best chance of success to bring time back into alignment with the least cost down the road."

"This is considered the least damaging?" he asked, disbelieving.

"On the whole, yes. The best chance of taking away Cobra's capabilities rests with you. We ran the gamut of possibilities, using every member of this team as the lead. You kept coming up the winner. A simple nudge of a shot, and you're now in a position to fulfill destiny. Otherwise, you'd be the one in trouble right now."

He stood suddenly slammed his hands on the table, startling Suarez. "I ought to string you up, lady!"

"You could, but you won't. You need me, and if you're smart, you'll calm down and think this through. You owe her that much."

He stood there, seething at her. "You know what? You're right – I need you, and so does the rest of this team. But I can't stand the sight of you anymore." He reached over and grabbed her arm, hauling her up out of the chair.

"Don't do this, Flint," she warned.

He dragged her toward the door. "Shut up!" Flint ripped open the door with his free hand.

They nearly tumbled in the hall as she resisted his grip. Almost immediately, they had an audience as hospital staff watched the struggle. The more he pulled, the more Suarez fought him until she nearly broke away from his hold. Somewhere in the distance, he heard a call for security to respond to the confrontation.

Out of his periphery, he saw two military police officers approaching quickly. They aimed for him until Flint stopped them.

"I want her placed in custody, on the double," he ordered, maintaining his control on her arm. "Round the clock guard."

The two MPs glanced at one another, unsure of what to do. Finally, one of them followed the order, pulling out handcuffs and securing Suarez's hands behind her back. Flint heard the satisfying clicks of the cuffs being tightened around her wrists. She was led away down the hall at a much more docile pace than what he had started. She took the opportunity to look at him over her shoulder one last time before they boarded the elevator and headed for the brig.

Flint looked around the ICU, taking in the stares and the sheer gawking of the staff. He forced himself to calm down, slowing his breathing and restoring order in his mind and emotions. Still, the stares persisted.

He didn't have the time or patience to deal with it.

"As you were," he grumbled and left for the stairwell.

Taking the steps was helpful. He felt the anger draining off his senses as he stomped down them, although he felt going up would have been much more productive in bleeding off his ire. If he had not been on a mission to get to the command center, he might have considered doing just that at least once to recover control of his raging emotions. His thoughts replayed the entire scenario of the day. She had warned him not to disclose information to those in command, but she had left him with no choice. He would tell Hawk everything, because Flint was a good soldier, and good soldiers did not withhold vital tactical information from their commanding officers without good reason. Suarez, as far as he was concerned, hadn't provided him with one.

When he caught up with Hawk and the command team, he laid it all out for them. From the events on the mountain to the last twenty or so minutes in the ICU ward, he told them everything he knew. They were aware that Allison had taken a turn for the worse, but they could not believe the fact that Suarez was responsible until Flint showed them the evidence of the personnel files, the pager incident, and the radar information from the attack. He presented like an equation, one fact following another.

"Let's say for the sake of argument that you're right," Hawk said. "Let's say she is from another time. And I say that with a hell of a lot more than a grain of salt," he added. "Where does that leave us?"

Leatherneck pushed back in his chair. "I still have recon units in the area," he said. "I say let's confirm if she's telling the truth before we risk anyone else."

Hawk considered the marine's suggestion. "How long will it take to get them in eyeshot?"

"A day on foot, if you want it quiet."

Flint rubbed at tired eyes. "What about wreckage from the surveillance site? Any evidence of the Strikers Bill and I saw?"

"I don't think they were looking that closely," Leatherneck said. "We have other recovery units on the way up there since we didn't see hide nor hair of Cobra. Looks like they bugged out right after the attack. We'll have them pick through what they find and see if there's any munitions evidence."

Bill sucked on a toothpick, rolling it between his teeth. "With our luck, those Strikers were using ghost missiles and you won't find anything. Then you'll be locking me and Flint up for sure and shrinking our brains."

Hawk turned to Mainframe. "Pull all intelligence data you can find on this. Call in any marker you see fit. I want to know what we're dealing with."

Mainframe grimaced. "I hate dealing with spooks."

The general spoke to Scarlett last. "I want you to take a crack at Suarez – or whoever she is. See what you can get out of her."

"I'll do my best," Scarlett assured. "I assume you'll be in the audience."

Hawk nodded. "I'll have her brought to the interrogation room. I want you to be diplomatic, but press her if you have to for answers."

"You got it."

They adjourned, with Flint leading Hawk, Duke and Scarlett to the interrogation area. Flint looked through the large one-way glass into the bright room. Suarez sat there, hands cuffed in front of her, looking angry more than anything else. She showed no fear, as though the whole affair was nothing more than a huge inconvenience.

Scarlett entered the room and sat down across from Suarez. Hawk turned on the speaker so the observers could hear the exchange.

Suarez began the conversation. "You're wasting time."

"I am?"

The doctor laced her fingers together, balancing her wrists on the cuffs. "I'm sure Flint has given you the story up to this point – which I specifically asked he not do."

"Yes, he has."

"Then you know there's not a lot of time to act on what I've told you."

Scarlett was smooth in her demeanor, speaking in even tones. "No offense, but you've hardly provided us with any reasons to believe you."

"What's the matter – your trust in Flint is that low?"

"Not at all. It's that we don't commit to an operation without some significant information. We don't put ourselves in harm's way until we're sure it's worth it."

"You've seen the satellite images. You know it's there."

"We know something is there. There's no telling what it is, nor is there any proof that it's a Cobra installation."

"If you send those recon units there, you'll find out just how much of a base it really is."

Flint could not see Scarlett's face, but he could tell by the minute tension that formed in her back that it unnerved her to hear Suarez revealing classified information.

"What recon units?"

"I'm not much into games. So, let's not play around. If you don't tell those units to fall back, you're going to have more than four casualties on your hands. It will be a bloodbath, and I won't be held responsible."

Scarlett opened the file folder in front of her, looking over the hasty report that had been compiled based on Flint's information. She turned over a few pages until she came to the synopsis of events.

She looked up at Suarez. "How about we try something simple. What's your first name?"

"Nancy."

At least they were getting some new information, Flint thought.

"Are you actually a medical doctor?"

"I have several doctorates, as a matter of fact. One of them happens to be in medical studies."

"And the others?"

"Quantum physics and electrical engineering. Good enough?"

"No, but we're just getting started," Scarlett said. "So, all this here must seem pretty primitive to you, if you are from where you say."

Suarez shook her head. "You don't have time for this biography lesson. You are so clueless we had to come back and give you a second chance."

"Who is 'we'?" Scarlett asked, reiterating Flint's earlier question.

"It's in the report, I'm sure," Suarez obliged. "I can't tell you, and you already know all you need to know."

"What is your unit designation?"

Suarez seemed to be weighing options in her mind. At last, she said, "We're called a Cyclops unit, a concentrated eye on time and space."

"In what year do you exist?"

"Classified."

"What organization oversees your operations?"

"Classified." Suarez laid her palms flat on the table. "Look, we could do this all day and I still won't be able to give you the answers you want."

"What about Lady Jaye? What happens to her?"

Suarez turned her hands upward in an 'I don't know' manner. "Your guess is as good as mine."

"I don't believe that," Scarlett countered. "I think you know exactly what happens."

"Up to you, but I'm telling you the truth. The timeline has changed for Flint's benefit. It's entirely possible there will be collateral damage with the action. Her fate rests in Doc's hands, not mine. For all I know at this point, if he sneezes before entering surgery, it could change the timeline for better or worse."

"Explain."

"Butterfly effect, chaos theory – all the classics. We set the big stuff in motion, but the little things happen on their own. It's impossible for us to predict to the smallest detail what will happen further out from the big splash. Our concern was putting Flint's destiny in motion and not on preserving others."

"You've nearly killed one of our own. That doesn't bother you?"

"No, what bothers me is what happens in the future if you don't take the chance you've been given."

"Classified, right?" Scarlett asked, a hint of frustration creeping into her voice.

Suarez cocked her eyebrows in affirmation.

"So, what is it that Flint is supposed to do exactly?"

"He already knows, and judging from what I can see in that folder, so do you. But I will tell you this – you don't get in there without me."

"I don't think Command will entertain that idea. In case you haven't noticed, there's a slight trust issue that's come up in the last twenty-four hours."

"I have not lied to you in any way. I have answered every question asked to the best of my ability given the constraints of my own mission. I will continue being truthful with you, but you may not like what you hear, and I'm more than certain you won't like the limited information I can give you."

Scarlett agreed. "I would say the odds of that are pretty good."

"Where the odds are against you is in getting into Cobra's installation. I can get you inside to get the job done."

Scarlett had been given carte blanche permission to interrogate Suarez, Flint knew, and she ran with the opportunity.

"What kind of op are we talking?" the Joe pilot asked.

"I want a guarantee first that I will be on the infiltration team. Then I'll give you the details," Suarez bargained.

Scarlett craned her neck, easing tense muscles. "I'll have to speak to my superiors about that."

"Better talk fast. The clock is ticking. Get back to me when you have an answer."

Suarez sat back, looking defiant and unwilling to answer any more questions. Scarlett gave her a moment to reconsider but gave up hope when Suarez remained stoically silent.

The door to the interrogation room opened and Scarlett stepped over the threshold.

""Well?" she asked, looking to Hawk for guidance.

"I don't like this one bit," he answered, walking over to the observation window, looking in on Suarez.

He stood there for a moment. The decision was Hawk's, Flint knew. Hawk was the commanding officer of the team, and he had ultimate say over operations. Flint did not envy the choices the man had to make on a daily basis, and he certainly did not envy the general's dilemma at that moment.

The heavy silence in the room only added to the tension and stress Flint felt.

Finally, Hawk spoke.

"Get her into a briefing."


	6. Chapter 6

Author's Note:

**14 Sept 05** - Again, thanks for the feedback! I was not sure if this storyline was going to be too fantastic to apply it to the Joe world. I had two directions in mind and chose this one out of intrigue. This is one hastily written chapter, so there may be some stuff added a bit down the road to flesh out other details. I'll post an update if that occurs.

Thanks!

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Chapter 6

The guards led Doctor Nancy Suarez into the briefing room. Her hands were still cuffed, but the restraints were now in place behind her back instead of in front of her. The guards had followed standard prisoner transportation procedures, much to Flint's liking. It was all the better, in his mind, if it caused her at least some discomfort.

She stood before them, a guard on either side. She was still in blue scrubs from the hospital. Flint looked at her nametag, wondering if that was even her real name. Somehow, he knew it was. As she had said, she had not lied to him or the command team in any of her answers. She had been forthright in saying there were details she could not give, making no bones about the fact.

Hawk was watching her, too. "Remove the cuffs," he ordered the guards.

They complied with the order. Suarez rubbed at sore wrists as the metal bands were removed and her hands were freed.

"Have a seat," Hawk said.

Suarez did so, pulling out one a chair at the head of the table and sliding into it.

"Where do you want me to start?" she asked.

Scarlett keyed up the most recent satellite surveillance photos of the area. "What kind of facility are we talking here?" she asked, pulling up the first image.

"It's a self-contained, secure experimentation lab. Geothermal vents provide turbine power, and the whole facility is deep cored into the mountain, an even fifty levels deep," Suarez said, watching the images scroll. "Events will take place tomorrow morning that will irrevocably change time if we don't destroy the facility's capabilities."

Then she added, "Do your logical brains a favor and don't ask me what happens. I won't answer the question."

Hawk watched the images, as well. "What about armament?"

"Tiny woodland creatures are afraid to go near this thing," Suarez said. "Motion detection systems line its perimeter, along with one hell of an aerial surveillance net. It has a twenty-four-seven rapid assault team to make life hell for whoever ventures into the area. You got a taste of them yesterday. Add in some Dreadnoks for fun, and you have a nasty mix of fire power and bad attitudes."

Hawk turned away from the screen. "For the moment, I'm going to give you some latitude, since you seem to be in the loop as far as this base is concerned."

"Thank you, General," Suarez said.

"Don't thank me just yet. You're only here as a consultant, and on my good graces, at that. I don't think I need to remind you that you're not exactly on the best of terms with us right now. You've had two months to let us know this was happening. Why wait until now?"

"It hasn't been an issue until this week. The facility came into existence four days ago."

Flint was surprised. "And they've built all that?"

"Now you have an idea of the power you're facing," she said. "Cobra's abilities will grow exponentially in the next few weeks until it will be impossible to stop it."

She rubbed at her eyes. Flint noticed for the first time how fatigued she looked.

"I wouldn't go through this much trouble and risk if I didn't think it was worth it," she said to them. "Whether or not you like me is inconsequential."

Hawk studied her for a few seconds, trying to decipher her, just as Flint had the day before in the infirmary. "Proceed."

Suarez stood and approached the screen where the images were playing. "The only way you are going to get in there is a HALO jump at night, around zero-one-hundred, when the security systems fail over to secondary systems for maintenance. The ground access ways will still be tightly guarded. Even God couldn't get close without setting off alarms. But, the aerial alarms will be changing over at that point. We'll slip in unnoticed if we hit the window just right."

"And where are we supposed to land?" Flint asked. "In the compound?"

"As a matter of fact," Suarez said, turning, "yes. It will be a precision jump, but you have a qualified team to do it."

"And they are?" Hawk asked, wary.

"Flint, of course," Suarez continued, "Leatherneck, Scarlett . . . and me."

Hawk actually laughed out loud. "You're HALO qualified?"

Flint shared Hawk's disbelief. High altitude – low opening jumps were dangerous and required endless hours of training.

"More than you could possibly know, General," Suarez answered confidently. "I'm a master jumper. This is child's play to me."

Leatherneck gave a snort. "No master jumper would consider doing a jump like this. A master jumper would know it's risking the team too much."

"Well," she said, "when you know what I know and have been where I have been, you know your limitations. I hate to keep bringing this up, but I'm rather out of my temporal element."

"Sounds more like your temporal lobe," Flint muttered.

"Funny," she said with a quaint smile. "I'm trying to tell you that I have experienced more lifetimes and events than you could possibly imagine. I have the luxury of doing things until I get them right. The fact that I am out of my own time and space makes this a little more interesting."

"Explain," Hawk ordered.

"This is a one-shot deal for me. No game element. I have to play under your rules, not mine. I don't get the replay option in this time and space."

Scarlett gave a curious look. "You're mortal," she said, the idea dawning.

Suarez said nothing in reply, but her silence confirmed the fact.

"Welcome to our world, lady," Flint said, feeling no sympathy toward the woman. He wanted to tell her just how mortals feel when death came knocking, how it felt when a bullet pierced the body. He wanted to tell her how it felt to watch a friend dying.

"Oh, it's been so warm so far," she said. "I'm feeling the love already. Especially that part where you had me handcuffed."

"Enough," Hawk said, intervening in the developing battle between Flint and Suarez. "Let's get to some productive information before I have both of you locked up."

Suarez continued to look at Flint. He felt his blood beginning to boil, but he had been given a command by a general. He finally looked at the images screen, breaking eye contact with her.

"One weakness Cobra has always had," Suarez said, moving on, "is the inherent need for escape. The higher echelons of its command make it a habit to have an alternate route to get out in the event they're attacked. This base," she said, pointing at the screen, "is no exception."

She asked for the image to be enlarged. She pointed to a small outbuilding in the northeast quadrant of the compound. "Inside this shed is a shaft that leads down to a storage area on level forty-two."

Leatherneck closed his eyes. "Please tell me there's an elevator," he pleaded.

"As a matter of fact, there is," she said. "However," she continued.

"There's always a 'however'," the marine grumbled.

"Where we need to go is eight floors below that."

Flint did a quick calculation in his head. Ninety-six feet was a long way to go.

"There's a service ladder not too far away from the shaft," she said. "We'll use that to get down the rest of the way."

Scarlett looked at Suarez. "And what is it exactly we're going there to do?"

"Two targets," Suarez answered. "Cobra has installed a high capacity generation plant and a device we like to call the 'golden egg'. Now, to take out the generation plant is just a question of planting some charges in some strategic spots and pushing the button. The egg, however, is a little more complicated. The egg is the big concern."

Suarez said, walking a swath of the room. "It's a temporal processor that is allowing the future to mingle with the past, which is what has caused this whole mess in the first place."

Hawk opened the briefing folder. "You mentioned to Flint there is an enemy of ours in the future that is feeding Cobra technology. Who is this enemy?"

"General," Suarez said, seeming tired of the question, "as much as I want to, I can't tell you. The timeline has already been corrupted enough. For you to know more will be disastrous."

"What about Cobra? Does Cobra know who this future enemy is?" Hawk asked.

"Not exactly," she said. "Cobra is drinking up what is being provided to it. They see the enemy as nothing more than a steppingstone at this point, something it thinks it can control. They're pouncing on an opportunity and putting it to immediate use. The future is feeding the past to put things in motion. And don't kid yourselves. The future knows exactly what it is doing, and it's doing it well. It's laying the groundwork to take over the world."

Bill spoke for the first time at the briefing. "I don't mean to ask the obvious, but if there's an installation down in that mountain, where's all the dirt from the excavation?"

Flint paused. It was a damned good question that no one had bothered to ask.

"The egg took care of it," Suarez answered, as though that should have made sense to everyone.

"Come again?" the cowboy said with drawl.

"Somewhere, in time, there is a big mound of historic mountain piled in the middle of nowhere. The future can put it anywhere it pleases to get the job done."

Scarlett smiled, as though the idea was funny in some way. "The egg is a portal?"

"It's many things," Suarez said, "but yes, it's mostly a portal. It opens a gateway along time's path, allowing specific destinations. The originator can make a connection between one place and another, allowing – for lack of a better description – two-way traffic."

"How does that work?" Scarlett pursued.

Suarez rolled her eyes in frustration. "Now we're back to the classified portion of our show." She looked to those in the room. "In any case, it's how those Ravens showed up and jumped you."

Bill removed the toothpick from his lips. "And the Strikers?"

She gave a thoughtful look, trying to find a safe description. "I guess you could say we have a little more sophisticated a system than the egg." She smiled. "We can hide what we send. Calling it cloaking or stealth, we can at least limit detection of our movement to human witnesses. If no one had seen them, you would never have known they were there."

Suarez sat down in her chair once more and folded her hands on the table. "Look, I can't make this any simpler. We need to get in there and take care of this little problem before it becomes a big one. Let's get this team assembled, I'll give you the target, and away we jump."

Hawk tapped his pen on the table, hitting one end, sliding his fingers down until it hit the bottom. He flipped the pen several times, repeating the process.

"What about egress? How do we get our people out of there?"

"Take out the generation plant and you take out their ability to see you coming. You'll be looking at standard ground armaments, not the heavy-duty toys in use right now. It'll be a fair fight, at least, getting out."

"You're very confident about this, aren't you?" he asked.

"I have to be," she said. "It's your lives and my job."

Hawk leaned back in his chair and continued to play with the pen as he sized up Suarez. No one spoke while he weighed the options.

The Joe commander turned to Flint. "You seem to be the center of attention in all this. What do you think?"

Flint considered his answer with caution. He looked to Suarez. Her dark brown eyes pierced him. His anger had died down, but his mind was still racing, trying to piece together what he knew and what he felt.

"I think," he said, carefully, still looking at her, "that this is insane."

He saw her head drop in disappointment.

"But," he said, "I also can't ignore what I've seen and what I know."

Hawk was not pleased with the vague answer. "I need a final decision, Flint. Is this a go for you or not?"

Flint broke his watch of Suarez and looked at his commander. "I'll go, but I'm not willing to ask anyone else to do the same. If this is a game, I want to minimize the risk."

Leatherneck leaned in to the table and craned to get a good look at Flint. "That's not the way it works, Flint. I'm in on this mission, whether you like it or not."

"Same here. Count me in, too," Scarlett added. Flint noticed a decidedly challenging tone in her voice, as if to say to Suarez that the Joes were a team, that the doctor was an outsider, and – mostly – that she did not believe Suarez's intentions.

Flint closed his eyes at the loyalty of his friends, his comrades. They had been through hell together, most of the time with him in the lead. As an organization, they were expected to go above and beyond the demands of the regular military. They were the final bastion of defense, specifically organized to combat Cobra and its operations.

When his eyes opened, he took in Hawk's countenance. The man was waiting for an answer.

"I guess we're going to pay another visit to Cobra," Flint said.

At first, Hawk gave no indication. The whole idea seemed so fantastic, so full of fancy that it read like a book of fiction when Flint had filed a report for them. He knew the general could call the whole thing off, but something told Flint he would not. They had seen unorthodox technology from Cobra before – technology that would have had the spook organizations of the government salivating had the Joes seen fit to share some of it. Cobra spared no expense in experimentation and development. There was no reason for it to worry about money – it had deep corporate ties to research and development firms that networked the world, shrouding the evil empire in the glow of benevolent business practices.

Hawk gave a nod of affirmation at Flint's decision. "Then you have a go." He addressed Suarez directly. "It's against my better judgment to allow it, but you're going with them. You're going to be watched closely. You so much as step out of line once – jeopardize the lives of my people in any way – and they are authorized to shoot you where you stand. Do I make myself clear?"

Suarez smile, looking amused at the prospect. "Perfectly, General."

Leatherneck addressed Hawk. "General, if it's all the same to you, I'd like to pull my recon units out of the area if we're going to take care of this ourselves."

"Agreed," Hawk said. "Have them hold position as observers. If it heats up, have them call for immediate evac and get them out of there."

"Aye, aye, sir."

"Let's hit those racks, people," Hawk said. "We'll brief at twenty-one hundred. You take off at the zero hour tonight."

They stood from the briefing table, making their way toward the door. Flint caught up with Suarez before she could leave the room with the others. He hooked his hand around her arm. She had more muscle than he expected. Her bicep flexed in reaction to his grasp.

"Looks like you and I are partners," he said quietly.

"Wouldn't have it any other way," she said in kind as they stepped out of the briefing room.

The mission preparation area was in a building adjacent to the command center. They stepped outside for the short walk. Scarlett and Leatherneck walked ahead, giving the doctor and Flint some room. Suarez craned her head back, washing her face in sunlight.

"What are you doing?" Flint asked, not giving her a moment to stop.

Her eyelids closed for the briefest moment. "Enjoying what you take for granted."

He pulled her along the walkway, in no mood to be baited into conversation. "Move it," he ordered gruffly.

She sighed tiredly. "You need to slow down sometime, Flint. If you don't, you're going to look back on life and regret that you didn't take the time."

"My life was just fine until you . . . " He stopped, thinking better of completing the sentence.

"Until I what?" she pressed.

"Nothing."

"No, really – until I what?"

The anger he had managed to corral earlier broke loose. "Until you did what you say you did."

"You mean the nudge that gave her the bullet instead of you?"

He did not answer, but she must have been able to tell from the look on his face that she had hit the right chord. His neck felt flush and hot with emotion.

"I never said I nudged it, Flint. You assumed I did."

She slowed her walking pace. He obliged the change, wanting to know more and needing to put some distance between them and his teammates.

"If not you, then who?"

"Something far bigger than you or I. We're cogs in the wheel, Flint. The difference is that I know what the whole machine looks like while you're just realizing you're a part of it."

"I didn't ask for this."

"You chose to become a part of this team. Of all the things in the world you could have become, you chose to be a warrior. Yes, you did ask for this. Every time you've engaged the enemy, you've known it could happen. Well," she said with finality, "it's happened, only not to you. That's something you have to learn to accept. People get hurt in wars. Sometimes, they die."

He stopped abruptly, halting her forward progress. Flint glared at her, his heart pumping hard.

"You're telling me she's going to die?"

"No. I'm telling you there's a possibility she will. The truth of the matter is we're all going to die some day. It's just a matter of when."

Out of his periphery, he saw Leatherneck and Scarlett stop and wait for him, concerned looks on their faces. Flint clenched his jaw, the urge once again to pounce on Suarez building. She stood her ground, looking up at him, seemingly firm in her words.

"For your sake, you better hope it's not her time," he warned quietly.

With that, he urged her with purpose toward the preparation building.

The preparation building was a combination of jump hangar and barracks. A fully functional briefing room had been installed, with stations linked to live information fed to it by the command center. The floor of the hangar area was pristine. The paint shined and was diligently maintained by its staff. Flint felt pride every time he walked in there to see such efficiency and dedication from the soldiers whose job it was to send mission teams in harm's way. The Joe operational logo was embossed in the center of the floor. He had always made it a habit to avoid stepping on it, feeling it was something sacred to which he belonged.

Riggers were working on the opposite side of the hangar, repacking chutes, carefully aligning the cords in order. Flint trusted them implicitly, having yet to experience a problem with their practices. They were professionals and damned good at what they did. They had saved the lives of three pilots a day earlier, though he knew the riggers would never get the recognition they deserved. The pilots had ejected, and their chutes had worked perfectly, bringing the jet jockeys safely to the ground.

Flint glanced at Suarez. She was drinking in the scene. He had to wonder how new all this was to her. He had been trying to piece together what she knew and had actually experienced. She had been so cryptic that it was hard to know.

Still, he could see a sense of wonder in her eyes, as though she was seeing it all for the first time. Her eyes were alert, looking at every detail. He saw her look up at the high ceiling, saw her noting the exits to the hangar. His hand gripped her arm tighter, to let her know not to try to escape. She flexed her bicep again in rebellion.

They followed Scarlett and Leatherneck to the barracks area. The air was cooler there as they passed through the secure doors to the rooms that lay beyond them. Even with winter coming upon them, the facilities tended to bake in the hot afternoon sun, raising the temperatures in some of the buildings to summer levels.

He led Suarez down the hall to one of the bunk rooms and entered with her. He let go of her arm, allowing her freedom of movement as he closed the door. He turned on the light switch. A small lamp glowed at the far side of the room, drowning it in a soft yellow glow.

The rooms were small and functional. A bed on either side, a closet, two nightstands and a small coffee maker were the only amenities.

She turned toward him. "So, we're bunk mates, too?"

"Until this mission is over, you don't leave my sight," he said, removing his cap. He hung it on the rack by the door.

She sat down on the bed on the far side of the room, leaning up against the wall and digging her heels into the bed for support. She pulled out the pack of cigarettes from her pocket.

"There's no smoking in here," he said.

She pulled a stick out of the pack and offered it to him. "Have one with me."

It had been years since he had smoked. When he had first enlisted, it was habit. The missions came and went, with victories celebrated at bars with liquor and nicotine. He had quit when age started affecting his ability to keep up with recruits. The smoking habit went by the wayside in an effort to stem the tide of stamina loss and what was the beginning of arthritis in his left knee. Growing older was hell sometimes.

He took the cigarette and sat opposite her on his own bunk. Likewise, he leaned against the wall, watching her. She lit up, looking like she thoroughly enjoyed it. She flipped him her lighter.

He cupped his hand around the end of the smoke as he lit the flame. It was an old habit coming to life again. The taste of the menthol sank into his body like an old friend as he deeply inhaled the first offering. Flint blew out the first lungful of smoke, feeling a shameful satisfaction in how it felt. He tossed the lighter back to her.

"She does have a good chance, you know," she said, bringing the cigarette to her lips again. "Doc's good."

"Well," he said, looking for something in which to tip his ash, "you better hope so."

"Hey, this is not my fault. I'm here to help you."

"This is all your fault," he countered, turning over a coffee mug on the bed stand. He flicked the ash into the bottom of the cup. She found the same by her bed, pulling the cup onto the blanket.

"Seems that way, I suppose. But you're angry with me for the wrong reasons. It's definitely not my fault you're in love with her."

He tried to carry himself smoothly, but she caught him off-guard. He froze for a split-second at her words.

"She's a good soldier and a friend. I admire her," he said, trying to dodge the issue.

"Why deny it?" Suarez asked, shrugging. "Human emotions are the damnedest things sometimes, more powerful than any rulebook ever invented."

He felt as though he were in the tight confines of a confessional with Suarez. He wondered just how much she knew, or if she was just observant.

"I saw a close friend of mine get shot in the back," he said. "I care what happens to my team."

"Not as much as you care about her," Suarez said knowingly.

He was in no mood to debate the finer points of his inner feelings for Allison with Suarez. "Even if I did, there are rules about it."

Suarez pursed her lips, as though trying to stifle a comment. She took another drag on her cigarette. "How are you feeling, anyway? You look a hell of a lot better than last night."

"Warmer," he said, honestly.

"You had me a little worried."

"I find that hard to believe," he said, tipping off another ash.

"I really am a medical doctor," she protested. "Who do you think put the chest tube in her in the ER?" She straightened her legs, laying them flat. "I do care about patients. I care what I have to do in my job, and I care about what happens to her."

"I still don't get this," he said, agitated. "Exactly what do you do? I hear you saying you're a doctor, then you're a qualified HALO jumper, and God knows what else. What's the matter – couldn't find a profession you liked?"

"You could say I have, or had, a lot of time on my hands to learn. You get certain luxuries, almost unlimited time to learn what you want to learn, do what you want to do."

"And then?"

"Then you have to do your job. Sometimes, it's very simple. Other times," she said, "it's a little more difficult."

"Like now?"

"Yeah, like now," she said, crushing out her cigarette in the bottom of the mug. She reached into the pack and pulled out another. She clamped it between her fingers but did not light it. "The stakes are higher, both for those involved and for me."

Flint listened to her intently, growing more at ease with her, much to his chagrin. There was something very disarming about her, about the way she talked with him that had him feeling like an emotional yo-yo.

"With the stipulation of knowing future events, tell me about the Cyclops unit," he said, adjusting his legs to a more comfortable position.

She shrugged, considering what she could tell him. "We go backward to go forward. We do whatever it takes to stay with the master timeline."

"How did all this start?"

"An idea, a wish come true. Pretty soon, it was being abused. It needed enforcement and boundaries. Fortunately, there was a way to record the original timeline before it became corrupted and protect it from alteration. We had a reference for the way things were supposed to be. It's our guideline when we intervene."

"And Cyclops as a mascot?"

She smiled as she lit up the cigarette in her hand. "Mythical icon of what we do. It's a good story. You should look it up sometime."

"How many are on your team?"

"Classified, but I can tell you we're a tight group, just like yours. We have camaraderie, and we mourn our losses." Her face suddenly dropped. She looked down at her cigarette, rolling it between her fingers. "And that," she said, her voice plagued with the smallest quiver, "never gets easier, no matter when you are."

Even over his waning ire, Flint could see her unspoken pain. It was the first time he had seen her look unnerved and uncomfortable talking about a topic. He could practically see the memories whirling in her mind and identified with her pain.

"What happened?" he asked gently, a sharp contrast to most of his communication with her to that point. He genuinely wanted to know.

She shook her head slightly. "Same shit, different timeline," she said quietly, smoking again.

Silence drifted between them. His thoughts trailed off to Allison and what it was like to see her hit, to know she was dying as she clutched his hand. He had been right there, only now realizing what Suarez had told him was true. The bullet could easily have hit either one of them. It had been a simple twist of fate, one that had been intentionally initiated.

He picked up the mug off the bed and put it on the night stand again, laying down as he did so. Suarez followed suit, laying on her back, hands folded on her abdomen with smoke from the cigarette between her fingers rising in a wispy strand toward the ceiling.

He closed his eyes, smelling the burning tobacco and paper of her last cigarette as he felt himself drifting off to a weary sleep. The guards would watch the door, and he would not have to restlessly keep an eye on Suarez. There would be time for more questions, he said to himself. When all this was over, he would learn more from her, to figure out just what it was that was so bad and had caused all of them so much anguish.

He fell off to sleep, hearing only the quiet rush of air through the ventilation system and one last crush of Suarez's cigarette in the mug before she, too, took the time to rest.


	7. Chapter 7

Author's Note:

Sorry this took a while to knock out, but a couple of things happened. First, life occurred, taking away some of my free time. Second was the fact that this chapter was hard to write. There's the issue of Command juggling the go / no-go decision on the mission. I may be going back to do some rewrites to reinforce Hawk's perspective a bit. For now, just put one foot firmly in the Joe world and believe they'd continue with this mission until I can fully justify it. Thanks!

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Chapter 7

_Flint was caught again in a twilight sleep, an ether of warmth and deep sleep where his body forgot recent events and slipped into a comfortable flow of past memories, of better times and invincibility._

_He was walking down the center of the university campus, young and vibrant and ready to take on the world. He had received word that he had been accepted into the warrant officer program in the U.S. Army, his goal to fly helicopters and do his part in protecting his country coming to fruition. The Army needed him. Flint knew he would make it a career. He had wanted it for so long, and now the day had come when he would become an integral member. Training would start in two days. He had planned to spend that time living it up, because the time for games would be over once he started on his new career. He envisioned himself the hard line officer who would follow and enforce rules, demanding excellence from his subordinates. He had never demanded anything less from himself, and there was no reason he should not expect the same from others who served under him._

_The day was so clear, the sky a so perfectly blue it almost looked dark in spots. The summer was almost at its end. He had loaded up on two summer school classes to finish his degree in time. It had been tough. At one point, he was not sure he could handle all he was asked to learn. What ground on his nerves the most was that the classes were not really that important. As far as he knew, no one was asked to identify flying buttress construction in cathedrals unless they were going into architecture or engineering. The graduation requirements said he had to take a class in western culture, only he did not care about Greek mythology, nor did he care about rise and fall of the Roman Empire. He made himself buckle down and get through it. If he could not excel at a class he hated, he knew he would fail both himself and the Army in a difficult situation._

_A girl was walking in front of him. Flint took notice of her. He admired her shape, how her cotton dress hung on her in a natural way that made her look simple yet elegant. She walked fast. He picked up his pace, trying to follow her without being obvious. She was carrying an armload of books. He decided that would be his approach when he caught up with her. He would offer to carry her books._

_He tried to keep up with her, but she remained a few steps ahead of him, just out of reach. He tried running to catch up with her, but it did no good. His legs simply were not moving fast enough. She seemed to be getting further away until finally he pushed his body to the limit, closing the distance between them. He was breathing hard, reaching out for her. He saw his hand so close to her shoulder. His fingertips just brushed the cotton of her dress._

_He gave one final push of his legs until the muscles in his thighs felt enflamed. He reached out one last time and got the whole of his hand on her, pulling back to turn her around. Everything turned in a weird fast forward, frightening him. Suddenly she was there._

_Allison._

"Flint."

He jumped at the soft shaking of his body and the call of his name, disoriented and not knowing where he was. His heart was pounding in his chest.

Scarlett was above him at the side of the bed, trying to calm him.

He looked around the darkened room, the corners illuminated by the light from the hallway. Suarez was awake, propped up on her elbow, watching him. The clock showed it was almost eighteen hundred hours.

"Flint," Scarlett said again. "She's awake."

It did not register with him what Scarlett was saying. His brain was still trying to process reality, ridding itself of the images of the dreamscape.

"What?" he asked, thickly.

"Jaye – she's awake."

Suarez sat up, stretching. Flint looked over to her, then to Scarlett. It finally sank in what she was saying. He looked over at the doctor, who gave no indication of surprise at Scarlett's information.

"Watch her for a second," he said to Scarlett with a nod in Suarez's direction.

He clamored out of bed and entered the hall, finding the head at the end, on the left. He relieved himself, recounting the numerous cups of coffee he had drunk in the last day. He went to wash his hands, looking at his face in the mirror. Stubble plagued his chin, and his eyes were red. He looked like he had a hangover, only a hangover did not usually involve one's friends being shot and hypothermia.

He washed up quickly, running water over his face, utilizing disposable toiletries kept on hand to get the taste of cigarettes out of his mouth and to shave. A shower later on would do him good, but it could wait for the moment. He wanted to get over to the infirmary and see her. Then, he stopped, staring at himself in the mirror again. He closed his eyes, leaning against the counter with his hands. His emotions were in a chaotic motion in his head. He had been pulled in so many directions that he found it hard to focus on one moment. He tried to arrange everything into one coherent train of thought, to put it all in order, but he simply could not get his bearings on how he should felt or where he should have aimed his anger. As much as he wanted to blame Suarez, he knew he could not. As much as he wanted to thank her for helping Allison stay alive, he found that impossible, as well. How he would explain this all to Allison when she was stronger he did not know.

He finished in the bathroom and made his way back to the bunkroom to collect Suarez. He met the two women in the hallway, with Suarez having met the same needs.

Flint kept walking, with Suarez and Scarlett following him toward the infirmary. Curious looks blazed at them as they entered the ICU area. Joanne, the floor nurse, approached him.

"How is she?" he asked.

"She's very agitated," Joanne said. She looked over at Suarez. "She doesn't like the vent. We still have her in soft restraints."

Suarez looked over the counter of the nurse's station. "Let me see her chart."

Joanne glanced at Flint for guidance. "You're not going to have her arrested again if she looks at it, are you?" she challenged.

He supposed he had that one coming. Suarez was well liked among the staff, and he had looked like a complete brute when he had her in the hallway of the ICU.

"Give it to her," he said, not backing off in his tone, lest he lose more face in the wake of his rank and position in the Joe command.

Suarez was handed the chart. She flipped through the pages, noting Doc's orders and the patient's vital statistics. She nodded her head in satisfaction.

"Looks like Doc got it all this time," she said, nodding affirmatively. "Vitals are strong. Everything is looking very good so far. She's off sedation, which is good. Still some worries about infection, but that can be handled if it happens." She closed the chart and looked into Jaye's room. "Let's see what you can do to help out, Flint."

Flint led the way, with Suarez in tow, to Jaye's room. Suarez stood just inside the door as Flint moved to the bed. He quietly pulled over a chair and sat down, taking Allison's hand in his. Gauze restraints restricted her wrists to a short distance from the rails of the bed. He did not like seeing her that way, but he knew it was necessary.

He looked down at her, guilt washing over him like an acid, knowing their roles should have been reversed. Even if Suarez had not presented such a fantastic story that events in time had been altered for his benefit, he knew he would probably feel much the same regardless of circumstance. She had been close to him. If the bullet had not hit her, it probably would have hit him instead.

"Allison," he said softly, "can you hear me?"

At first, the steady sound of the ventilator was the only response. He called her name again, this time a little louder and closer to her ear.

She stirred, her eyes rolling open in an embattled manner. They did not seem to be focusing on any one thing, the manic movement hard to follow. He put himself more in line with her vision. She began focusing on him when she saw his face.

"Hey," he said with a smile. "Good to see you awake."

She squinted as though in pain. He heard her struggle against the respirator.

"Easy," he said, putting his hand on the side of her face. "I know it's uncomfortable, but you have to let it do the work for you, at least for a while."

He stroked her hair off her forehead. "You're getting better by the hour," he said in encouragement. She seemed to settle at his touch.

She opened her eyes fully and focused on him once more, tears welling, threatening to spill down her cheeks.

"No," he soothed, his voice sticking in his throat at her fear. "You're going to be just fine."

She gripped his hand as he held it, closing her eyes again, screwing them shut. Finally, the tears that had been held at bay fell, accompanied by tiny, limited sobs against the ventilator.

Suarez had admonished him to be positive the night before, and he decided that was good advice. He cupped her chin in his hand, carefully avoiding the vent line. She looked up at him, eyes glistening.

"You listen to me," he said, determined. "I have never lied to you, and I'm not about to start. It's going to take time, but you're going to get through this. Every day, you're going to feel better and get stronger, and I'm going to be right there with you, helping you. Do you hear me?"

Her eyes closed again, but she gave a small nod to indicate that she had. She looked at him again, hand still clinging to his.

"That's my girl," he said, smiling. "Now, I have to go get some things done, but I'll be back."

He took the time to brush away another rebel strand of hair that fell across her forehead. "Get some sleep, and I'll be back to see you."

She gripped his hand again. She was smart enough and coherent enough to realize he was going on a mission. Allison was a veteran, a warrior like Flint, who knew that the war machine rumbled on despite casualties and losses. She had earned her stripes with honor and tenacity, fully willing to give her life in the fight against Cobra and its terrorist ways. She, too, had gotten things done when they were needed and knew exactly what he meant, making her a comrade in arms to him.

He concentrated on her face, memorizing its features. His mind erased the ventilator and the IV lines and everything that was not a natural part of her body. His tired wits overcame the exhaustion that plagued him to record the visage. He did not know what would happen once he returned, but he was determined to find out what the future held. He vowed that she would be a part of it.

Suarez stepped forward, looking to the monitors and aimlessly checking life support equipment to give Flint the opportunity to escape. He reluctantly broke his touch with Allison, turning completely away from her as he left the room. He knew if he looked back, he would not want to leave, would not have the gumption to embark on the mission scheduled for that night.

He walked down the hall toward the elevator. Scarlett was waiting for him. He passed by her, nearing the elevator. He pushed the button on the elevator, then backed up to the wall opposite the doors and sank down on his haunches, all energy to stand suddenly escaping him. He sat down fully, pulling his knees up toward his chin. Flint pushed his fists into his eyes, trying to push down the emotions he felt surfacing. He could ill afford for others to see him so distraught over Jaye's condition. Their relationship had been a covert operation, itself, and he had heard innuendo flying when it began. Initially, it had been easy to blow it off, to dismiss the barbs and raised eyebrows. Until the day before, it had been more of a game to him, like smoking in the bathroom in high school. Then it all became too real. At least Suarez had said it outright – he loved Allison, even if she refused to admit she loved him out of respect for the chain of command and the chance they could both lose the careers they had worked so hard to achieve in the military.

He sensed someone bend down next to him, felt a comforting warm hand on his neck. Scarlett did not utter a word. She only stayed with him, allowing the feel of human touch convey the fact that he was not alone and that she understood his pain and anguish. She was a part of the team, and he knew she felt the same anger he did that Cobra had inflicted damage on the Joe team.

There was a collective ire among them all whenever Cobra seemed to make an advance, but there were also close circles in the team. Jaye and Scarlett were friends, having formed a bond of only a handful of women serving on the Joe team. Early on, they had endured barbs, mostly good-natured but some not, from all angles. What he found unique with them was that they could handle it, dishing it right back when the situation called. There was no need for them to prove their worth. They had already done it time and time again.

Flint was not sure how long he sat there before he heard the quiet squeak of rubber soles on the polished hospital floor. When he opened his eyes, he saw Suarez walking toward them. She gave him a nod.

"She's doing well," she told them.

Scarlett looked up at Suarez with disdain. "Which is a good thing for you."

Suarez was about to rebut the statement, but she decided against it, allowing Scarlett to vent even a little of the resentment that seemed aimed solely at Suarez.

The doctor concentrated on Flint. "We need to get moving."

Flint got his senses under control, managing to stand. He turned to Scarlett. "Are we ready for the briefing?"

She nodded. "Command is waiting with baited breath."

"Okay," he said, feeling his control return. "Let's get going."

Scarlett called for the elevator. They stepped inside, riding down to the first floor in silence. When they exited, Flint found they were once again greeted by stares from the infirmary staff. He tried to ignore the feelings it elicited, but he had always enjoyed a good relationship with those on the Joe staff. It was difficult to know he had fallen a notch in their eyes, even if it was probably not as bad as he thought it was at the moment. He knew he could repair relationships around him if he tried. If anything, he could live with the fact until all the uproar died down and things returned to normal. He had to believe at some point that all would get better, that the insanity he had been through would calm and become nothing more than a bad memory.

The evening air was cool, with a lilting wind blowing steadily on the campus of the base. It woke him from his fog, the cold air reaching his lungs and providing his body with a fresh flow of oxygen. He looked to Suarez, who was once again looking up as she walked. The stars were beginning to appear in the sky. She studied them, a slight smile forming on her lips. He wondered what had changed in the future that made her thirst for such images now in his own time. It certainly smacked of an apocalyptic event that kept her from seeing what he saw every day and night. He had come to the realization that she would never tell him why, accepting that she was steadfast in that resolve.

For her benefit, he slowed his pace, walking more slowly to give her more time to look. It was not because he liked her. To the contrary, he was still angry. However, she had given him reason to trust her intentions. It was ironic how much he did not believe her, yet he found himself giving her the benefit of the doubt. He had been trying to create a successful equation of all the events that had taken place, trying to fit her into the string. For every argument he could make against her and her story, he found a plausible explanation as to how she could be a benevolent part of it all. If she were indeed a time traveler, she could go anywhere she wanted, when she wanted, and influence or change that which would normally have been impossible. It boggled his mind the more he considered all of it, until he finally put it on hold, giving his logic a break. Soon, the whole affair would be someone else's responsibility. Someone else in the chain of command or an in another agency all together would find the truth from her and get the information she so skillfully withheld from them.

He took the lead, turning them toward the command center. Suarez paid attention to their path when they neared the doors. Flint cleared her entry with the security staff. He led them down the hall toward the briefing room. Once again, Hawk and Duke were waiting. Leatherneck had arrived earlier and was waiting for them in his customary chair at the conference table.

Hawk and Duke were having a quiet discussion when the group entered. Duke looked up and gave a small nod at Flint in welcome. Hawk sized them up, taking a moment to check on the status of his troops.

"I take it you got some sleep?" the unit's commander asked.

"Enough to get our feet back under us," Flint said, sitting down at the table.

Suarez sat down next to him, reclining in the chair and folding her hands in front of her.

"Doctor Suarez," Hawk said, addressing her with a formal title, "I trust you did the same?"

"Slept like a rock, General," she answered cordially.

Flint had no idea whether or not she was lying. He did not remember even drifting off to sleep. His body had been screaming for sleep, and it took the opportunity he had given it with vigor. He had no idea if she had even slept. For all he knew, she had stayed up, watching him.

Hawk began the briefing. He quickly put control in the hands of Suarez, who laid out what they needed to do. They would jump at thirty thousand feet, pulling ripcords at two thousand above the target. They would go in with small arms and conventional explosives to take out the power plant.

"The power plant, as I said, is going to be the easy part," she said. "We need to hit it at the geothermal collectors and fry it from the inside out."

Leatherneck was listening intently. "And what will that do exactly?"

"The heat from the explosives should send the generators into overdrive, causing a feedback through the system. Once they lose power, it will be a straight shot to the main objective."

"A schematic of this place would be nice," he said.

For the first time, Suarez looked annoyed. "If you give me a box of crayons and some paper, I'll see what I can do."

Hawk was a commanding officer for a reason. He knew how to keep things on track. "I think what we're concerned about is a lack of illustration of this plan. It's not enough to point us at a target and hope that everything works out."

"Well," Suarez said, adjusting her posture in the chair, "that's exactly whatyou have to do this time. I'll be there to guide the mission and do the detail-oriented things. You're going to have to rely on my knowledge to get through this."

Scarlett was not amused. "I guess we'll just wrap you in Kevlar before we go? It would be a drag if you suddenly got killed and left us stranded."

Suarez ran both hands through her dark hair in frustration. "Listen to me carefully – for all intents and purposes, I know every inch of where we're going. I know who will be where and when, and I know what has to be done. If I had three more of me, I would never have bothered dragging all of you through this. As it is, I need you to do what you do best, which is kill people and break things."

Flint bristled at the phrase. For as much as he hated it, it was the truth. The foundation of the Joe team was to destroy that which Cobra manufactured. They killed both Cobra technology and those who had been lured by the false promise that it would some day rule the world. That was their job, no matter how unpleasant it sounded.

Still, he fully understood the position of his teammates, who were not willing to outright trust the words Suarez spoke. She was asking them to go in blind.

Flint scratched at his temple. "If that's true, then why not send three or fourfrom your unit back to do the op, if you know where all the skeletons are hidden?"

"Because we don't have the ability to send multiples through time. Otherwise, you'd see my friends here, supporting my claims. Some things need to happen simultaneously when we get to part two of this mission. One person alone can't take out the egg, and you need at least one lookout in the event there's an unplanned evolution."

He raised a brow. "So, this may not go according to plan?"

"Some things could change, yes," she admitted. "The chances of a catastrophic evolution are slim, though. There should be no great surprises."

Hawk was not satisfied. "But these small changes could be significant, could they not?"

She gave the answer a moment of thought. "If left unchecked, yes. I'm there to see that they go accordingly."

Flint stood from the table and walked to a whiteboard on the other side of the room. He picked up a marker from the tray on the bottom of it and flipped the pen over to Suarez. She deftly plucked it out of the air, catching it solidly in her hand.

"It's not a crayon," he said, slipping a look at Leatherneck, "but it'll have to do. I want an idea of the layout of this place. I'm not a fan of small, unexpected changes."

She obliged him without objection, approaching the whiteboard while he reclaimed his seat. She began to draw the main entry points of the facility, illustrating just where they would get in and where she felt the danger points were nestled amid the security net of Cobra.

Suarez laid it all out on the board. Flint noticed as the drawing took shape that she was meticulous in both her penmanship and ability to draw. Crisp corners and curves made the information clear as she illustrated the plan. She did drawings in several spots on the board, covering specific targets.

"The power plant," she said, "will be the most unpleasant part of the mission. It's going to be hot where you have to go to put it out of commission. Scarlett and Leatherneck, you're going to have to move quietly through these collectors," she said, drawing large cylindrical shapes, all in a row, on the board. "Guards are consistent in their patterns of patrol. All you have to do is watch it a while and time it out to know when you can go in. Once you're able to move around, place charges on these six collectors and get the hell out of there. Head for the surface and detonate."

The word caught Flint's undivided attention. "Detonate?" He wagged his hand back and forth between Suarez and himself. "And you will be long gone by then, right?"

"No," she said plainly. "We'll be just getting started. While they're busy making fireworks, you and I will be heading toward the big prize."

Hawk seemed to accept the first part of the plan, but the second part was not satisfying him. "I want to know more about how you intend to take out this portal."

Suarez sat down at the conference table again. Once more, she carefully contemplated her answers. "I have to walk a very fine line with this," she said. "Much of it is a need-to-know basis. What I need from Flint is for him to be the eyes in the back of my head while I deal with taking it out."

Flint liked that they were finally getting to his role in the whole matter. "And what kind of coverage are we talking? Is this thing out in the open, or are we going to have some breathing room standing there while you poke at it with a stick?"

Suarez took it in stride, as was her demeanor. "We'll have some coverage," she said. "The egg is located in a secure chamber. Once the power plant experiences catastrophic failure, attention will be drawn away from there. The guard contingent will be reduced to a minimum, which will enable use to move in virtually without confrontation."

Hawk gave a squint of disappointment. "Define 'virtually'."

"Light resistance. One or two guards will be all we have to quietly eliminate. From there, we go in and get the job done."

Flint was imagining the entire scenario. He could see them entering a small chamber, trying to get the job done, only to have the door slammed behind them, trapping them into certain death.

"Swell," he mumbled.

She heard it, even if the rest of the team did not. Still, she did not acknowledge him.

"Time is of the essence," she said, staying on topic. "If we don't get this done in the next few hours, life as you know it will change beyond the control of my unit. It will be impossible for us to repair all the damage it will do."

She looked around the room, taking in the unconvinced looks of the Joe team. Her face softened, seeming sad to Flint in some way, as though having to withhold details from them was the crux of the problem. It was at that moment he began to believe in her completely. She had been consistent in her story, and she had not lied to them. She had only held back on some information, fully disclosing the reason she could not provide the in the first place.

He thought about what Jaye would say if she were in on the meeting. She was tough in such situations, asking questions and thinking ahead of the game. He truly did not know how she would have personallyviewed Suarez. Scarlett made it clear there was no love lost, but Jaye might have been a different story. While she had a temper, she also had a streak of common sense that might have taken Suarez's story in a different light. In any case, he knew she would have drawn the same conclusion that he had. She would have decided that it was better to take the chance than to sit back and do nothing at all. If it was truly a threat, then it was best to meet it head-on and fight it inthe best tradition of Joe service to the nation and the world.

"Then we better gear up," Flint said. He turned to Hawk. "General, with your permission, we'll hit the armory and let Doctor Suarez go shopping."

Hawk looked at Flint intently. "This mission is in your hands, Flint. If you're saying it's a go, then it's a go."

"Yes, sir, I am," Flint answered confidently. "We'll adjust on the fly if needed."

The general surveyed those in the room carefully. He was looking for any dissenting opinion, finding none with Scarlett or Leatherneck. They had promised Flint they were in, and they held to that promise.

Hawk nodded. "Then you have a go."


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's Note: Doggone it, but life interfered with hobbies again. As such, it got me off track with my plot. I ended up totally trashing the first version of this chapter and rewrote it. This is how it came out, though it might get some cosmetic updates as I go. Thanks for being patient!**

**Chapter 8**

He finally got the shower he craved. Flint wanted to stand under the hot steaming water for a lifetime, but there was work to be done. Scarlett had taken charge of Suarez once more while he got cleaned up and back in order. He took another look at himself in the mirror, satisfied that he was looking better than when he had previously looked. More sleep would be good when they got the mission done, but the six hours he had snagged were a start.

When he entered the hall, he found Leatherneck standing outside one of the bunkrooms, leaning against the wall, running through hastily prepared mission notes. He looked up at Flint as he approached.

"You still look like hell," the marine said.

Flint gave an amused look. "At least I have a reason. What's yours?"

Leatherneck hedged, but he finally got it out. "I don't like this plan, Flint," he said, almost in a whisper. "I think it's downright reckless."

Flint could hardly argue. "I know," he admitted with a sigh, "but I don't believe we have a choice. If she's right - and no one can argue the satellite images - then we have to trust her."

"I'm glad you feel that way, because you're stuck with her. At least I get paired with one of our own."

"I'll make you a deal," Flint said, "just see this through like you said you would, and I'll never ask anything of you again."

Leatherneck gave it a moment, then screwed up his eyes in contemplation. "Just what is it that has you so convinced? From what I hear in the briefings, she doesn't have squat to be pulling us into this."

Flint was honest. "I can't put it into words," he said, "but I know this is something we have to do."

Leatherneck was incredulous. "Did you ever stop to think she's playing us? Maybe she's a snakehead?"

Flint was not in a position to argue. "I've thought about it a lot, but I do know if we don't do something, we'll be making a mistake." He eyed the marine. "You thinking of backing out?"

"Hell, no," Leatherneck answered vehemently. "All I'm asking is for you to be the C.O. we've come to know in the past. I've been a part of dangerous missions, but not like this."

"I'm keeping my eyes open."

Scarlett and Suarez entered the hall at the opposite end. They had changed into the black jump suits provided for the mission. Suarez walked with confidence, as though she were really accustomed to nature of the business. She looked as military as anyone he had ever seen, not the uncomfortable being as he had seen many times when medical personnel were tapped to go on covert ops.

She walked up to where they were standing. "Sergeant," she said in greeting to Leatherneck.

"Ma'am," he said in reply, though it was less than cordial.

Flint cleared his throat when he sensed the tension growing. "Well, that about handles the pleasantries. Let's get loaded up."

He led the way to the weapons room where she grabbed a cart sitting inside the doorway. Suarez moved through the racks of guns and munitions like she had been there on a regular basis. She shopped what was available, pulling plastic explosives, detonators and a sidearm for herself. The last selection she made was of her main weapon. She carefully picked up a G36 from the rack. She checked the chamber, looking satisfied that it was clean. She pulled the frame stock back, locking it into place.

Suarez looked at Flint and realized the group had been watching her every move, analyzing her choices, wary of her selections.

"You're free to bring whatever you'd like," she told them, like a teacher guiding students. "But you need travel as light as possible."

The G36 happened to be Flint's weapon of choice on a mission, as well, though he worried that she might see his choosing it as a sign of camaraderie. She handed him several magazines from the shelf and took more for herself. She ordered the weapons on the cart into piles, evenly distributing the supplies to each of them.

She looked at them. She stood on one side of the cart, facing them. The metaphor was visible – they were on one side, she was on the other, with something separating them. She was not a part of the team. She was a separate and hardly even equal in the group. Suarez had made sure of that. To what end, Flint did not know. He imagined so many other ways she could have gone about taking Cobra and whatever or whoever was helping him out of commission. Why she had chosen this way was an answer only she knew.

They loaded the munitions in to mission packs and headed for the hangar. The riggers were waiting for them. Black packs containing their chutes were lined up on the floor. Handlers stepped to attention as Flint approached.

"At ease," he told them. "Let's get the show on the road."

The riggers picked up the packs and began strapping them on to the jumpers, cinching up straps and checking each device. Flint girded his back against the weight, feeling himself pulled backward by the bulk of the pack. He looked at Suarez, checking to see if she was struggling at all. If she felt any discomfort, she did not show it. She handled herself with confidence, with an air of experience that matched his own and the rest of the team. They allowed the riggers to finish their work. The jump plane had been towed to the front of the hangar. The ramp had been lowered, and cargo handlers waited to help them aboard.

Flint called for the team to head to the jump plane. The pungent smell of grease and fuel pierced his senses, flooding his mind with pleasant memories of his childhood when he would go to air shows with his father. He longed to ride in the aircraft that used that fuel, leaving his own trail in the sky, which those on the ground could follow up into nothingness. He loved the feel of an aircraft's engine as its power thumped in his chest at full speed. He also loved the feeling of freefall as he leapt from one of those aircraft into the openness of Earth's atmosphere, feeling the total freedom and rush it gave to his senses. Night jumps were even more exhilarating. More than once, he had slipped a look from underneath his nightvision at the blank nothingness of the night sky and the unknown below him.

The ramp began to close once everyone was seated aboard the C-130. Their packs had been loaded with explosives and ammunition, following Suarez's instructions. Flint checked his watch. They were right on time. The plane began taxiing toward the runway. It halted and waited for the moment to take off into the night sky. When the control tower gave the go ahead, its engines roared. Flint felt the force exerted on his body as he leaned to the left in the rack chair. The nose pitched up as the plane gained altitude, pushing him even harder. He saw Suarez instinctively clutch the bar that ran under her legs for support. The plane continued to climb. It banked around and around, all the while gaining altitude. The air began thinning as the coldness of higher space began creeping into the pressurized cargo area.

Flint issued the order for them to put on their masks. He checked his watch. They were to jump in four minutes. He began the ritual of checking the packs of the jumpers. Everything seemed in order. At last, Scarlett gave Flint's rigging a final check, pitching him a thumbs-up when she was satisfied.

He motioned to the airman at the ramp to begin opening the back end of the plane. Cold air swept over them as the fuselage was exposed to the brisk night air. Flint watched the red light near the door, waiting for it to turn green. He checked his weapon one more time, locking and loading. Suarez stepped in front of him.

"I'll lead you down," she said. "We'll open at two-thousand feet, not a moment sooner."

He saw Scarlett glance at Leatherneck. Although the full masks they wore obscured most of her face, he could see a look of resentment in her eyes.

"You heard her," Flint said, siphoning off any chance for his team to disobey orders, "two-thousand feet. Get ready to jump."

Suarez neared the edge of the ramp and waited. As soon as the light turned green, she was off into freefall. Flint followed a second later, as did Scarlett and Leatherneck. Flint oriented himself and began a controlled descent. Through the nightvision, he saw Suarez square herself and buoy her body against the rush of air until she was in line with the rest of the group. They formed a circle, falling together toward a massive mountain that invited them with open arms.

Flint checked his altimeter. They were falling fast. The frigid night air pounded against his body, permeating his jumpsuit with a cushion of ice. The trip down was quick. They were within the jump window, according to Suarez's information. He looked down and saw the tiny buildings forming on the side of the mountain. The base was definitely there. There was one road leading in and out of the compound, obscured by the rough landscape. He saw their target. The outbuilding was a pinpoint of a square on the northeast corner of the base.

"Here we go," Suarez announced through the helmet mic. "In three, two, one!"

They simultaneously pulled their ripcords, sending chutes trailing up in the sky above them. The wind caught the fabric, billowing out the airfoil until the channels within it were fully buoyed on the frigid air. The harness on Flint's rigging snapped up tight against his body as the chute fully deployed. His body, moments earlier weightless and free falling, was now suspended in the atmosphere in a controlled descent.

"Follow my lead," Suarez ordered. She began spiraling down toward the outbuilding toward a small zone behind it that was flat and dark. Her descent was sharp and determined.

Flint followed suit, concentrating on his landing zone and avoiding looking at the world spinning out of control around him. The green of the nightvision helped him to hone in on the target. He watched as Suarez straightened out and extended her legs for landing. She dropped in on the zone with precision, setting down exactly where she had shown them. He was determined to match her, if only to eliminate her chance to point out that she was more adept at the feat. He pulled on the cords that led to the foil, first the right, then the left, banking until he was nearly on top of Suarez as she hurriedly gathered her chute and got out of the way.

He heard his chute flutter as he neared the ground. He pulled hard on both cords, steadying his approach until he dropped neatly onto the ground, touching down with both feet. He immediately began pulling in the cords as he heard Leatherneck's approach. Flint looked up in time to see the sergeant coming down on the zone. Scarlett was not much higher, landing last in the group. They, too, secured their chutes, gathering them quickly and piling them out of sight.

Suarez waited for them near the outbuilding, weapon at the ready. He heard Leatherneck and Scarlett lock and load behind him and join up at the building.

Suarez checked her watch. "We go in thirty seconds. There's a guard unit running around here. They're on a round now. They'll pass by here. Then we'll go."

Flint shivered involuntarily against the chill of the night. Winter came sooner to the higher elevations. The wind was stronger, blowing arctic air across the landscape unimpeded. His hands were warm. The Nomex gloves he wore resisted the cold completely. He tightened the grip on his weapon as he heard footsteps approaching. Suarez held up a fist to tell the group to hold still as the patrol passed on the other side of the building. Flint's heart beat faster at the prospect of confrontation. For as many times as he had seen combat, the danger of it still thrilled his body, making it taut with anticipation.

He heard faint voices above the wind as the patrol's leader rambled on about the state of affairs in the Cobra empire. Suarez kept her fist up, telling the team to continue holding position. Flint, however, began getting nervous. The corner of the outbuilding did not provide adequate coverage. All it would take is one alert guard to look left and the mission would be blown. He looked nervously to Suarez, but she was concentrating on the patrol, as if timing their steps. The moment they passed, she lowered her hand and moved forward around the corner of the building. She almost seemed to glide, her steps silent and precise.

She opened the door and corralled the team inside the tiny structure. It took a moment for Flint to realize where they were once she closed the door again. He had expected they would take some stairs to get to the elevator. Instead, they were in the car. A tiny control panel lit up in his nightvision like bright runway lights. He pulled off his goggles. The rest of the team did the same.

"Ready for some fun?" Suarez asked no one in particular. She moved to the panel and tapped the last button in the columns of choices. The care began descending downward in to the mountain. He felt the muscles in his ease when gravity was lessened on them as the car moved downward to its final destination.

Suarez studied her watch. She looked up at Flint. "Change in plan," she announced quietly.

"You're kidding me?" he asked, incredulous.

"We're off schedule by sixteen seconds, according to my calculations."

"So, what do we do?" Scarlett asked. "Wait it out?"

"If we were ahead, yes," Suarez said. "Unfortunately, we're behind schedule."

Flint's ire rose. "I thought you had this all planned out?"

"Evolutions, Flint," she said, sounding bored with the explanation. "I never said it was going to be a perfect plan."

Leatherneck, always to the point, pressed Suarez. "So what happens now?"

"We all go to the power plant together. We'll split into two teams to set the charges. That should bring us more into alignment with the schedule."

She looked at her watch again, then at the countdown on the elevator. They were six floors away from the bottom of the shaft. "I'll take point," she told them.

The elevator reached the bottom of the shaft. It shifted the weight of those aboard as it came to a complete stop. Suarez waited for the door to open, then slipped into the tiny corridor leading up to the lift. Flint was almost parallel with her in the hall as they moved. He saw a change in her demeanor. She looked stressed for the first time. She was breathing heavily as they neared the end of the hall. She held up her hand again, indicating the team should hold position.

"Hold here," she told them in a whisper. "I'll clear the way."

Then she moved in silence into the hallway. Flint stole a look around the corner in the direction she was heading. A guard stood with his back to the hall, scuffing at his boot with the other foot, not paying attention to what was coming behind him.

Suarez moved with silent speed toward him. Flint saw her hand drop down to her utility belt as she unsheathed a k-bar knife. He knew immediately what she intended to do, and it was not to be a moment of negotiation with the trooper. She crept up soundlessly behind him, her body catlike. In one smooth leap, she sprang forward, clutching a hand over his mouth and pulling the blade across the front of his throat. He struggled against her grasp for only a moment before she plunged the blade into the side of his neck, almost to the hilt. When she pulled out the blade, tiny spurts of blood spewed from the trooper's body. She cradled his weakening form with one arm, laying him gently to the floor as he died. Without a moment's hesitation, she grasped the collar of his uniform and began dragging him back into the small passageway.

Flint stepped out into the hall to help her. Together, they brought the trooper's body back to where there was the offshoot in the hall to the elevator. Scarlett and Leatherneck vacated the space and assumed guard positions in the main hall.

Suarez looked down at the trooper. He was young, probably recruited off some college campus with promises of glory. He had not lived life enough to know what was out there. Flint saw the doctor close her eyes. She looked as though she were seeking forgiveness for the act, regretting that she had to do it.

She bent down and cleaned the blade of her knife on the soldier's uniform. Then, without a word, she put it back in the sheath, where it was ready to be used again if necessary. The whole series of acts was shocking to Flint. There had been times when he had killed up close and personal, but he had never watched someone do the same. He half expected Suarez to be completely emotionless about it, but he saw the look of regret in her eyes and knew killing the guard was the last thing she wanted to do.

The trail of blood in the hall was masked by the darkness of the corridor. Unless someone looked very hard, the evidence would elude the naked eye at first glance.

Suarez picked her way to the head of the group again and peered around the corner into the main corridor. She stepped out, implying they should all follow. Flint checked both directions before proceeding. Suarez was three steps ahead of him, moving silently and quickly down the hall. She was just short of a trot in her speed, walking heel to toe, checking the corners as she went. The journey was not that far. She pulled them down another small corridor to the right after about a hundred feet. Its layout matched that of the elevator's passage, only this time, the door off the end led to a shaft with a ladder.

Flint looked down the tube. It was a large cylinder, big enough for two to stand at the bottom fully concealed to either side. At the bottom, he saw light illuminating the exit to the escape route. The ladder made a large L-shape from its connection to the wall at the top of the shaft, making it possible for them to climb down the backside of the ladder. Again, Suarez took the lead and began the descent. The bottom looked so far away to Flint that he thought they would never reach it. Halfway down, Suarez swung around to the back of the ladder so she would have a straight-on view of the portal at the bottom when they got there. She moved quickly. He had to work to keep up with her. Scarlett and Leatherneck followed, spacing themselves from Flint as a precaution.

It was almost a hundred feet to the bottom of the shaft. Flint kept a silent count in his head of how many rungs they had traversed. When he reached fifty, he started running through their exit scenario. He hated the idea of relying on Suarez to take point, but he was left with no choice. Leatherneck had put it best that the plan was shoddy at the very least.

He looked down at Suarez. She was nearing the bottom of the shaft. He picked up his pace to get down there as quickly as possible without making more noise than necessary on the rungs. When he reached the bottom, Suarez was waiting for him, checking around the corner of the shaft's exit. Scarlett and Leatherneck remained on the ladder, waiting for room to land.

Without reason, his mind turned to Allison again in that moment. He thought about how she looked at him as he left her. She knew he was going to do something dangerous. Even in the haze of pain and medication in the aftermath of a critical wound, she knew. There were so many things he wanted to tell her, but there had neither been time or opportunity. Now, he wondered if he would ever get the chance again.

Suarez readied herself at the door. She ticked down three seconds on her hand and bolted out into the corridor. Flint followed exactly two steps behind her. He heard Scarlett and Leatherneck wait a few seconds and do the same. He could hear the rumble of the generators in the distance. Suarez moved forward confidently, checking her watch every minute or so as if timing their movement. The main corridor was wide and empty when they first entered it. They enjoyed the advantage that nothing would surprise them from behind, but Flint still had no idea what lay ahead. They were following Suarez blindly into the unknown.

They came to a right turn in the corridor. Suarez stopped and did a quick look around its edge. She turned back to Flint. She motioned with her hands what she wanted him to do. She affixed a silencer to her G36, and did the same. He moved forward for a quick look around the corner to find his target. He had been trained to do it lightning quick so as not to be seen by the casual observer or bored guard. He saw his mark, a Cobra guard standing lazily in front of the door, not paying attention.

Suarez positioned herself next to Flint and silently counted down again. At the count of three, she leapt forward and fell to one knee. He rounded the corner and brought his weapon up, squeezing the trigger twice as Suarez did the same. The guards never had time to react. They were dead before they hit the floor.

She did not wait even a moment before moving forward to begin dragging her target off to the side of the hall. Flint followed with his, laying it across the guard's comrade.

She looked at the team. "It's a straight shot from here to the generation plant. You'll be able to avoid confrontations with the right timing."

"Goodie," Leatherneck grumbled.

Suarez rolled her eyes at the marine's sarcasm. She turned to the door, opening it a crack and looking beyond to the next section. Once Flint was inside the next section, he saw what she meant. There were small alcoves at even intervals down both sides of the corridor that would easily hide them from view. They used them as they proceeded, snaking in and out of hiding toward their target. She once again motioned for the team to continue forward but did not follow them. Flint backtracked to her location. She was already making her way in the opposite direction.

"What the hell are you doing?" he whispered sharply.

"What I came here to do," she said quietly. "You go make sure that plant gets taken out, and I'll do the rest."

"Like hell you will," he countered.

"This isn't the time for discussion, Flint. I have a mission, and so do you. You have to do your part, or all of this will be for nothing."

"I'm under orders to babysit you, and that's exactly what I intend to do."

Suarez craned her neck, stretching taut muscles. "Have it your way, tough guy," she said.

Flint bristled at the term. That was Jaye's pet name for him, and it somehow seemed so wrong to hear Suarez calling him that.

"Get moving," he said through clenched teeth.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

Flint worried about Scarlett and Leatherneck. Suarez had sent them on their way without so much as a wish for good luck. Sure, she had briefed them about what they should blow up, but they were going into an occupied area completely blind, whereas Suarez seemed to have the upper hand on how things would go.

She was moving ahead of him. He debated whether he should have his rifle readied against the enemy or her. The halls were dark, giving them places to hide. The crews were thin as night wore on, leaving Suarez and Flint more room to freely roam unimpeded. They continued on until Suarez made a turn off the main hall and headed for a hull door. She quickly spun open the hatch wheel and stepped inside, waiting for Flint to join her. Once he was there, she jammed her survival knife into the wheel mechanism, the blade still red with the young guard's blood.

She slid down the wall until she was seated on the floor. Out came the pack of cigarettes. Suarez lit one up and took a long drag from it. She held up the pack to Flint. He declined.

"Might be your last chance," she warned.

He took the cigarette from the pack and tapped it against the back of his hand, packing the tobacco. He, too, sat down on the floor, opposite her.

She tossed her lighter over to him. He looked on the silver surface of the Zippo. Her initials were engraved in stoic letters on the side. He studied her as he lit his cigarette, anger welling again that she had put them all in this situation.

"So what now? We just wait?" he asked her, flipping the lid of the lighter closed, smothering the flame.

She smiled slightly, catching the lighter in her hand as he tossed it back at her. "Until we hear the big boom."

The smoke from her cigarette wafted straight upward, pulled by a strong air current. Only then did he realize they were sitting at the bottom of another escape shaft. Tiny lights illuminated the shaft for as far as he could see. He blew his own trail of smoke up the shaft, watching it dissipate into nothingness.

"So, this change of plan," he said, straightening his legs and looking at her, "you do this often?"

"What – changing horses mid-stream?"

"Is that the scientific name for it?"

"'Evolution' obviously doesn't satisfy you. Perhaps farm animal analogies will go farther."

He was not amused. "Your point?"

"The point is that we're almost back on schedule. We wait here until they get the power plant fired off. Then we'll make our move to the objective. In the meantime, we have a few smokes in here, enjoy the quiet that three-inch thick steel brings, and hope to hell nothing else unexpected happens."

"Too bad we forgot the deck of cards and a six-pack," he said, with heavy irony in his voice. "How long are you and I going to wait around in this piece of paradise?"

She checked her watch. "Six more minutes. See, they're going to be caught by the guards."

He lurched forward. "What!"

"Relax, Flint," she said casually. "They're captured for all of thirty seconds before Leatherneck head-butts one of them and gets them out of the jam."

He threw down the cigarette and made a sudden move for the door, but he stopped short when he heard a round racking in the nine-millimeter she wore. Without turning around to look, he knew the barrel was pointed at his back.

"Don't make your own evolution, Flint," she warned. "Things are in motion, and it's best that you let them happen as they should. Sit down."

He slowly turned around to face her. She was pointing the weapon at him casually, not in any way alarmed. Her finger was not even on the trigger. It lay against the side of gun, ready to slip down in a fraction of a second to change his life forever.

"See," she said as she watched him return to his spot on the floor, "I know how this ends. Like you, I have a mission to accomplish. I can't let anything or anyone stand in the way of that."

"Hard to tell whose side you're on," he said quietly.

"I'm on a team you couldn't possibly understand. You won't live long enough to see my team even form."

"Pretty ominous."

"No, just a matter of fact. Scarlett and Leatherneck will complete their mission, and then I'll start mine. After that, you won't see me again."

"Why?"

She smiled, her eyes suddenly looking tired. "Because it's the end of the line for me. I go on to a new mission, and you return to life as it should be." She furrowed her brow. "Look at it this way, Flint – I'll be out of your hair and out of your life. Provided there's no reason for me to come back to this line, your emancipation is at hand."

Flint resisted the urge to let his hand slip to his own sidearm. It would serve no purpose. Even if he managed to get a shot off at her, he was in the belly of an angry whale and needed her to get out of it. Regardless of whether or not he was completely convinced of her story, they were still in the center of an underground Cobra base with an enemy force more than capable of subduing them.

"So," he said, "no chance anyone is going to find those bodies we dumped off to the side every so often on our way here?"

"There's always a chance. Remember, the timeline has been corrupted."

"By you?"

"To some degree," she admitted. "Mostly, what's been corrupted has been by your hand or of those around you."

"Tell me something – would we have found this place had you not come back?"

"You would have been a day late and dollar short. By the time anyone would have known the extent of the infiltration, nothing could have stopped it."

She held the weapon lazily, letting the barrel finally trail down toward the floor. She pulled out the pack of cigarettes and lit up another, leaning back on the bulkhead.

"You going to hold me at gunpoint until this is over?" he asked, relieved to see her relax as far as the gun was concerned.

"If I have to, but it would be a shame if it came to that."

There was no sense in trying to fight her. He was there with her, stuck in the center of the mountain. All he could do was make the best of his situation.

"Does everyone in the future smoke as much as you do?" he asked, holding out his hand for the pack.

She shrugged and tossed it to him. "Outlawed, actually. During another mission I was on, smoking was required to blend into the timeline. I got hooked and managed to take a case with me when I finished. Been enjoying the hell out of them ever since."

Flint noticed she seemed conversational. "Back at the base, you said you had lost someone close to you on a mission. What happened?"

Suarez flipped him her lighter. "Never said we were close. I just indicated that I lost someone on my team."

Flint was no stranger to what it felt like to lose a team member. He could tell by her demeanor that she was lying. It rang out through the look in her eyes. "Not buying it."

She smiled more to herself than at him, as though she had been successfully cornered and found it amusing. "People in my job don't have long relationships. They're short and to the point for a reason. It's relegated to the work environment."

"But this one wasn't," he said, taking his turn at putting her on the offensive.

Her face became serious. "No. I got closer than I should have – just like you." She took another drag on the cigarette. "And then he was gone, and I've been alone ever since."

For the first time, Flint truly felt for her. Her anguish, though she bottled it well, seemed genuine. It lay strategically buried under sarcasm and rage and control. He knew because that was the same place he hid his.

"I'm sorry," he offered.

She nodded solemnly. "Me, too."

Flint wanted to capitalize on her apparent willingness to talk. "I have to ask you – in the briefing, you told us this was a one-shot deal. Then you say you get to move on to another mission. So, which is it?"

She craned her neck sharply. He heard several tiny pops as the vertebrae realigned themselves. "Again, you assumed that what Scarlett said was gospel. If you'll recall, I didn't say anything in response. It really is something you need to work on. You know what they say about when you assume . . ."

"Yeah, yeah, I know," he said before she could finish.

"Look," she said obligingly, "what I meant was that if we were in my world, we could literally play this over and over until we got it right, much like a simulator. When I'm in a real world, it's game time. Everything is real. Once the mission is finished, provided the agent is still alive, he or she gets to go home or moves on to something new. A paper cut is a paper cut to me here. I'm not immune to injury or emotion. Barring a _really_ good reason, no one pulls my butt out of the fire."

"It would take a mission to fix a mission, right?"

"Now you're getting it," she said with satisfaction.

She had said she would not answer questions that required revelation of classified information, but he felt he was on a roll with her.

"How many times have you done this?"

"Time jump?"

"Yeah."

"Ninety-seven, including this one." She seemed comfortable with the number, as though it was not unusually high.

"I take it you've trained a lot?"

"My team has had the opportunity to become proficient at what we need to get the job done."

There was no pride in her voice. She was confident, speaking as a matter of fact and not boasting of her skills. He had been around special operations groups, including his own, that by their very nature wanted others who were cleared to hear it know of their accomplishments. It was a competitive career that relied not only on proper and effective planning but also of the belief of its participants that they were the best of the best and could accomplish anything. They compared their exploits over beer and whiskey, competing for the best story yet all the while knowing they were all a part of a team, of a mission to protect the free world. He silently wondered if Suarez and her comrades did the same.

She checked her watch again, not saying a word as to what the time meant.

He eyed her intently. "If anything happens to them, I'll hold you personally responsible."

"They'll be fine," she said, almost sounding as if his concerns bored her. "I wouldn't have sent them on their own otherwise."

"But you wanted to send me with them."

"Only to keep you as much out of harm's way, Flint. I don't need you to get my part done. In fact, you're a liability to me. You were just the key to getting in here."

"You used me," he accused calmly, his voice low. "You've ripped apart countless lives, and there are some that might never recover from that."

She pulled her other leg up, resting her left hand with the lit cigarette on it. Her finger was still dangerously close to the trigger of the gun in her right. "I know it seems that way, but I promise you it was with good reason and intent. You can't even begin to imagine the consequences if what has begun is allowed to move forward in time."

"Yeah, I know," he said impatiently, "the next apocalypse."

She laughed. "No," she said, drawing the word out and shaking her head. "An apocalypse would be a blessing. It would mean an end to the spawn of hell on Earth. They just aren't that lucky in this timeline."

Suarez took one more drag of the cigarette and crushed it under her boot. "On your feet, Flint. We have an egg to crack."

"I didn't hear any . . ."

The metal he was leaning against suddenly shook with violence. It rattled his bones to the core as an explosion tore through the facility. Dust rained down on them, filling the chamber with a choking cloud. He recovered and moved to the door, weapon at the ready. Suarez twisted her knife out of the hatch wheel and sheathed it. The wheel was free to turn once more. She cracked the door open slightly and surveyed the hall. He moved to open the door more, but she held up a hand to stop him. He heard the sound of boots on metal in the hall. Once the sound died away, she nodded for him to proceed. He pulled on the door and allowed her to step into the passageway.

He instinctively raised his rifle, looking for target. The sense of chaos that was filtering through the base was heavy in the air. Klaxons blared a warning that something was desperately wrong, that the base was under attack. The passing patrols were literally running headlong down the hall, never taking notice of Flint and Suarez as they patiently waited for the next opportunity to move ahead from their hiding spaces.

Flint looked at the halls and immediately wished he had brought a bag of breadcrumbs. Everything looked the same. There were few markings on the wall he could use to identify where he had been and just which way was home should they actually make it out of the situation alive. Suarez was leading him down one way, then another in a manic pace. He had little time to memorize the way.

The lights dimmed for a moment. Then they cut out completely, plummeting everything into darkness. The klaxons went silent. Flint reached for his night vision goggles and slipped them on his head. The world turned green again. Pitch-black corridors came to life once more. Suarez had done the same. She motioned for Flint to follow down the hall toward a closed set of steel double doors.

He saw her reach for the handle on the right door. He raised the G36 again, nodding to her that he was ready for what lay beyond the barrier. She pushed down on the hand slowly, opening it as quietly as she could. Despite her efforts, there was a squeak in the hinge. His eyes immediately acquired two targets fumbling in the dark. One of them turned at the sound of the door opening. He dropped the trooper with two quick taps of the trigger. The other trooper turned quickly, frantically trying to find his partner and the sources of the new sounds.HeH Flint gave him no breaks as he tapped two more rounds from the rifle into the second trooper.

Suarez moved in, taking point. There was no need to move the bodies now. It had begun. Suarez continued down the hall, her pace quickening. Flint took a moment to notice landmarks. Cobra, true to form, had marked the walls with department headings. There were rooms marked as storage, some designated as communication closets. They had security measures on them, requiring magnetic cards for entrance. If he had not known where he was, the habits could have passed for any Joe installation. For all intents and purposes, Cobra was an organized military entity. It had rules, even administrative ones, which kept it in order. Anything less would have made it just another fly-by-night terrorist cell that would be easier to eliminate. Cobra, though, had intelligence behind its design. It had discipline and rules. Its soldiers were subject to regulations imposed by its commander, despite the fact that those rules were meant to bring about the reign of terrorists over the civilized world.

They passed by an open medical facility, the entrance to a small galley and two more locked storage units. Twice, Suarez and Flint ducked behind support columns to hide as frantic soldiers hurried down the hall to help with the explosion at the generation plant. Flashlight beams bounced wildly off the white cement walls as soldiers tried to find their way in the darkened facility. The next set of security doors received the same treatment as the first. Two guards were neatly dispatched to their deaths by the silenced weapons of Joe infiltrators, all while the lights were dark.

Suarez checked the security panel at the door. "This is it, Flint," she said, working a code into the keypad. "You ready for this?"

"We've come this far, haven't we?" he asked.

"Everybody has regrets, Flint."

The internal tumblers in the door moved. A sharp click sounded as the bolts pulled to the side to unlock the door.

"Take off those goggles. It's going to get bright," she warned.

He did as he was told, having no choice but to trust her words. She pulled on the door. A loud hissing sound revealed the contained pressurization of the next section. She opened the door a crack, revealing a seam of bright white light. It assaulted his eyes with a piercing pain. He squinted against it until his brain adjusted. His weapon was up, waiting to take out whatever stood in the way on the other side.

Suarez whispered a countdown to him. "One, two . . ."

On an unspoken three, she ripped open the door. It took only a second before he acquired his first target. He tapped off two rounds and was immediately greeted with four shots in return from a weapon on the far side of the hall. The echo of the report ripped through his senses, awakening him to the task. Suarez ducked inside the door, taking cover behind a stack of polymer crates. She fired off a series at the enemy, giving Flint the chance to enter and take up position on the opposite side of the hall. He looked out before him, seeing an endless tunnel of light and enemy agents. They were on the defensive, firing at the two lone invaders crouched for their lives behind plastic boxes.

The door closed again. The locking mechanism inside it flicked shut, metal clacking against metal. Suarez turned and lit up the control panel, making an exit impossible. Shock shuttled through Flint as he realized what she had done. The good doctor had sealed their only means of escape.

There as no time to give it any more thought. The Cobra troopers were pushing forward, firing down the hall in a steady hail of bullets. Flint took out two more, but the troopers were not letting up on them. He unhooked a grenade from his vest and pulled the pin. His hand stayed securely around the explosive until the right moment. Then he launched it through the air at them. The spring-loaded arm popped off and made a tinkling sound on the tiled floor as it slid under a pallet. The grenade sailed like a round black bird. It rolled on impact with the floor. Nearby troopers took notice of it with a panic but had nowhere to go. Only those who had the luxury of distance escaped the splinters of shrapnel that spewed out of the small explosive. Flint heard screams as three troopers took the brunt of the assault. One of them was thrown forcefully against the gleaming white wall. He crumpled to the tile in a heap, no longer a threat to Flint or Suarez.

"Cover me!" Suarez yelled over the din.

She dashed up to the next set of containers, firing the whole way. Rounds plinked off the concrete, spitting fragments in her face as she crouched down behind the boxes. Once she was safe, she popped over the top of the containers and let loose with a volley, allowing Flint to leapfrog ahead to the next set on his side.

As a return favor, a grenade flew through the air at them, landing close to Suarez. Without thinking, she reached out and picked it up, hurling it back in the direction it had come. It sailed twenty feet farther than Flint's throw, knocking out another contingent of troopers. Flint took the opportunity to move forward to the next place of cover. He squeezed off several more rounds. Suarez was like a well-tuned machine, using his action to gain more ground.

Another seven troopers flowed into the corridor. They began a counter assault, causing Flint and Suarez to duck down low behind the crates for deep cover. Flint tried to pop over the top of his container to take a few shots, but the troopers drove him back to the floor with their own wave of fire. Suarez tried, too, with the same results. They tried again and again to take shots at Cobra's forces only to be held at bay.

Flint looked over at Suarez. She had her back against the containers. He saw the dark smoldering look in her eyes as her anger and frustration built. He knew what she was thinking. He had done before, himself, and had gotten lucky.

"Don't do it!" he yelled over the sound of shooting.

She looked at him, boiling over with fury. In one smooth motion, she turned around and knelt on one knee, opening fire with abandon. She gave a cry of war and began moving forward, as if invincible to what was trying to kill her. Suarez trotted down the hall, blasting anything that moved. When her magazine was dry, she ejected it and slapped in a new one from her belt. Flint supported the action with cover fire, giving her time to reload.

Now it was his turn to navigate down the hall, though he was not as brazen as the doctor. He kept behind the crates, weaving in behind them for protection. Soon, he and Suarez were synchronized in their movement, taking their pick of targets in the thin corridor.

He looked deeper down the hall and saw their eventual goal – another set of doors with windows. Beyond that, he could see something that looked like a control room. He saw the tops of heads looking over consoles, eyes fearful at the sound of a firefight just outside the door.

He and Suarez kept making progress down the hall. The smell of gunpowder burned Flint's sinuses. It was like a drug. It triggered the animalistic killing instinct in him to eliminate every enemy he saw. His rifle blazed, kicking into his shoulder again and again as he pulled the trigger. When he smelled the blood of his enemy rise up from the floor, his mind was filled with an odd satisfaction that they were dead and he was not. He was not sure if Suarez shared his feelings, but she moved like a winner, running with confidence, shooting with invincibility. Once again, they spotted each other as magazines were spent and replaced.

There were only four troopers left at the end of the hall, and they showed no fear as they fought. Their combined fire drove Flint and Suarez back into cover one last time. Without communication between them, they each pulled the pin on one more on a grenade and simultaneously tossed their munitions in the direction of the remaining troopers. Flint cowered low, covering his head when the realization that the explosion was going to be significant.

It was.

A wave of dust and debris rolled toward his hiding position, choking the back of his throat when it hit. He could not contain the cough that erupted from it, his eyes watering and tears rolling down his cheeks. Even Suarez was not immune to it. It did not prevent her from moving again toward the end of the hall. She stepped over two bodies that lay in the center of the aisle. Flint looked around him, back to where they had come from and then toward their destination. Not one of the bodies was moving. He did a quick count of the dead and estimated they had killed almost thirty troopers in a span of three minutes. He had kept count in his head of how many he had taken out, realizing that Suarez had done most of the work.

Suarez was changing out to another magazine as she walked toward the door. He caught up with her at the next security checkpoint. While there were windows, the thickness of the door made getting through a much more daunting task. Workers in the console area on the other side frantically gathered and huddled in small groups, not knowing what to do. He looked at them, trying to decide what their fate would be if and when he and Suarez could get through to the other side.

"What do we do with them?" he asked Suarez, nodding to those in the next room.

"Let them go," she said, shrugging out of her pack. "They're not going to make it anyway."

She opened the zipper on the pack with purpose, routing around inside until she found a detonator and a small package of C4. She molded the clay into the seal of the door, right where he imagined the locking mechanism was housed. Then the detonator was pressed into the soft material. She set the timer for twenty seconds and began falling back to the second set of crates from the doors. He followed her, crouching down low and plugging his ears.

"Fire in the hole!" she cried, just before the explosive blew.

The concussion brushed against his left leg as more debris was kicked down the hall. Something heavy and metal dropped to the floor with a clang. Suarez was on her feet and running for the doorway, weapon raised. It was his turn to pull the doors open as she readied to make an entrance.

Inside, five console workers huddled low, fearing the enemy that bore down upon them with raised weapons would open fire.

Flint followed behind Suarez, identifying every target he could and worried about the ones he could not see. She did not seem so concerned, calling out to them to get on their feet and move to one side of the control room. They were herded like animals into one central mass from behind the oak consoles where monitors displayed operational information. The room was small, just large enough to house the consoles and the operators. Six glass panes led to a view of another larger room with an access door to the right of the area. For the first time, Flint looked through the windows and was awed by what he saw. Indeed, just as Suarez had described it, there was a large egg-shaped vehicle. He had not accurately imagined its size based on her description in the briefings. It was at least twenty-five feet across with one pedestrian access way. To the right was a larger ramp that looked like it was used to ferry cargo from inside the egg. His mind drifted to old television shows of _Lost In Space_, except this was no spaceship, and the egg was planted firmly inside a mountain, not adrift in the blackness of the universe.

Suarez neared the group of workers, aiming to one in particular. She pulled him to his feet by the collar of his white lab coat. He was young, maybe her age, but the fear in his eyes said he had never seen the likes of combat in the name of Cobra, much less had he ever been taken hostage. Sweat was rolling down the sides of his face, and thinning black hair was matted down, probably from having been crushed by his forearm in an attempt to shield his eyes from certain death.

"Get up," she said calmly, almost gently. She sounded as though she had no intention of hurting him. "What's your name?"

"Gideon. Please, don't kill me," he begged, his voice shaking and cracking slightly.

She held the G36 on him, poking the barrel into his side. "Open the door, Gideon."

He put his hands on top of his head in submission. "I can't."

"That is not the answer I want to hear," she said. "I have four more just like you I can try this with, so let's not waste any more time." She pushed him toward the consoles. "Open the door."

Flint kept watch over the four remaining contestants as Gideon leaned over the keyboard of the center console and began to type.

"He knows you're here," Gideon stammered, typing madly.

Suarez was nonplussed. "It would be a disappointment if he didn't."

Gideon finished his typing. A red light over the door to the right turned green, indicating the lock had been disabled. Suarez pushed him toward the hall exit where the main battle had taken place. She shooed the rest of the workers in the same direction.

"Get out of here," she ordered.

They wasted no time in taking her up on the offer, bumping into one another as they made their escape. Then, Flint and Suarez were in the control room alone.

"I thought you had a way in there?" Flint challenged.

For the first time, she looked disconcerted to him. Her demeanor had changed, one that was not as confident. "In all our haste, I forgot the code," she said.

She was breathing harder. It was not like she had run a race. It was more akin to stress settling in on someone. She saw him observing her and straightened her back until she appeared in charge again.

Suarez checked the magazine in her rifle once more, putting it back with purpose. "What do you say we go find the man responsible for this little party?"

With that, she headed for the control room door.


	10. Chapter 10

**Author's Note:** Thank you for the feedback so far. It's been fun! Sorry for the delay in the new chapter, but it's that darned real life thing intervening again. I'll try to stay on the ball and finish this up. As usual, it has not been edited very much and is pretty much being posted hot off the keyboard. I might go back and add some clarity when there's time. The good news: I know how it all ends. :) 

**Author's Note, Part II: **Okay, there was a teeny, tiny continuity error I didn't see until I posted. It's all fixed now (I think). For the record, the final security field into the control room is red.

**Chapter 10**

Suarez took point. They stepped into a large cavern with a high ceiling of carved rock. The egg looked even bigger as they approached it. Flint scanned it again with his eyes, following her lead as they moved closer to it. Cargo containers surrounded it like pebbles around a lake.

"So, is there an official name for this thing," he asked, "or is it really called an egg?"

She was checking her corners carefully as they moved. "It's a transtemporal transport, or a T-three. Calling it an egg is more cute."

There was a flash of movement to the right. Suarez was all over it, firing off several rounds and taking out at two unarmed cargo workers who stepped out up from behind a stack of crates. They had no time to surrender before they were gunned down with accurate shots. Suarez approached the bodies where they lay on the floor of the cavern. One worker's eyes were open, frozen in shock as death greeted him in quick fashion.

Flint saw Suarez look away from the body. Again, she seemed suffer a wave of shock or regret. Her neck was wet, glistening in the wake of sodium lights high above them. Her face was flushed, her breathing uneven and labored. After a moment, she reached down and removed a band from the worker's wrist, putting it in her pocket. She then moved to the other worker and removed an identical bracelet. She handed it to Flint.

"You okay?" he asked, genuinely worried for her but also for his own welfare. He was relying on her to help him make it out of there.

She did not look at him. She licked her lips and swallowed. "I'm fine," she said quickly. "Put that in your pocket."

"What is it?" he asked, complying.

"Our ticket into the egg. It's a high-tech swipe card."

Again, she led the way. They approached the loading ramp of the egg. The black walkway was inclined at nearly forty-five degrees, making it difficult to see what lay in wait at the top of the ramp. Suarez began climbing, undaunted by the prospect of what may jump out at them. As they entered the egg, it occurred to Flint that his estimates of the vehicle's size were considerably off by a margin.

"It looks smaller from the outside," he noted.

"It is. You're entering the inside now," she said, as though it explained it all.

"Excuse me?"

"Welcome to the world of temporal tampering, Flint," she said, annoyed. "Time and space mean nothing in here. An egg is a finite size on the outside, but inside," she said, waving the barrel of her rifle at the walls, "it can be as big or as small as it needs to be."

"So, how big are we talking in here?"

"There are infinite possibilities. The operator can make it anything it needs to be. Today's contestant has made a cargo ship out of it and is transferring supplies from one time to another. Every step you take is another step into a unique period of time and space. You're seeing the past and the future when you look out there."

They reached the top of the ramp. A blue shimmer surrounded them, startling Flint.

"What the hell was that?" he yelped, turning and trying to identify the source.

"A security measure," she said. "If you don't have one of those bracelets we just took off those guys back there, you bounce off like a ball. Trust me – it's not pleasant, especially if you're running at full speed. It'll knock you back a good twenty feet if you're going fast enough."

She forged ahead, with him in tow to the top of the ramp. What Flint saw when they got there amazed him. What should have been an enclosed area equivalent to the hold of a ship was more like a warehouse in size. Row upon row of cargo was stacked, waiting to be offloaded into the new base. Suarez pulled Flint to the side and down behind a container as two workers passed by them.

"Back to hide and seek," she said quietly, breaking his awe of the egg's capacity.

Flint looked around at the containers. Pallet loaders with solid front skids waited silently for drivers to move the boxes. They looked like abandoned pets that had given up looking for owners and decided to stay where they were, just in case. He had never seen a warehouse so full of supplies ready to move in all his years with the Joes.

"Why wait?" he asked.

"What?"

"Why wait to offload all this stuff?"

"It's like I told you – baby steps. Give Cobra too much, and it will blow the whole plan. This is a timed distribution of weapons and supplies. You'll notice, none of the workers are Cobra."

He had not, but when she mentioned it, it was true. They were not wearing uniforms emblazoned with the crimson seal of the empire. They were, in fact, quite anonymous.

Suarez moved again, motioning for Flint to follow. She pointed two fingers at her eyes, then bladed her hand to left to tell him there were bogies on the flank. He saw them – three workers taking inventory. Suarez and Flint slipped by them unnoticed. They seemed to play such a game for a while, dodging those who might sound an alarm with finesse. It reminded him of when he was a boy, playing "kick the can" in the summer twilight hours, trying to get the last score in before the streetlights came on and it was time to go home. That time seemed so far away, so ancient as he followed her, trusting she was leading him in the right direction and that they would stay alive as they ventured deeper behind enemy lines.

He took a mental inventory of ammunition on him. They were running low and would have to conserve, making every shot count. He tried to see what Suarez had on her, but he could not see the front of her vest. He trusted that she was prepared. Despite the way she had played all of them in the beginning, he had come to believe she was genuinely on their side, trying to right what had been turned drastically wrong. Somewhere in the equation, he was even glad he was the one on the mission and not Allison. She was in good hands with Doc, and her prognosis was positive when he left her.

When he viewed his own outlook, the odds did not seem so favorable. He had his doubts as to whether or not they would even make it out of the mountain alive. Unless Suarez had a card up her sleeve, there was little to suggest the mission was anything more than a one-way ticket to a posthumous retirement, maybe a nice medal someone would put in a memorial display in his honor. He had done it for other soldiers who had been killed. Flint had no doubt the same would be done for him. It was not that he was vain about his service with the Joes. It was that the camaraderie they shared was closer than family sometimes. It was a matter of pride and of the notion that they were protecting good, innocent people in the world. They were willing to die for it. Some had already paid the price, and the Joes had made sure that none of them had been forgotten and never would be.

They came to the end of one of the cargo rows. Suarez pointed upward with her rifle at what looked like another control room.

"That's our target," she said quietly. "It's a controlled-access bridge. That's where the magic has to happen."

"What do we do when we get up there?"

"If all goes well, we're going to start a feedback loop in the spatial controls that will cause the egg to fold in on itself. Once that happens, everything else it's brought with it gets consumed. There should be virtually nothing left but a memory."

He gave a half-hearted low chuckle. "Piece of cake."

"That's what I say."

She moved forward toward an inlet in the wall. To the immediate left was a set of stairs that wound upward in neat ninety-degree turns. They ascended four flights, stopping when Suarez indicated there were guards ahead of them. She motioned for Flint to take his turn dropping them from the other side of the doorway. He darted across the open doorway, locating his targets. Three guards stood watch in a small entranceway room, aloof and unsuspecting that anyone had infiltrated their vehicle so cleanly. He gave himself a three-count before turning the corner and firing. One dropped immediately with a headshot, crumpling to the floor in a heap. The other fell with two shots to the torso. The third suffered much the same fate. The second target writhed and coughed as Flint bound into the room. The guard was struggling to reach his weapon that had skidded away in the attack. His hand molded around the grip as Flint approached, weapon raised. The guard saw him and tried to bring the weapon around but was stopped cold and dead by a shot from Suarez. There would be no taking of prisoners. There was only one way to handle the enemy, and that was to eliminate it as found.

Suarez toed one of the bodies, making sure there was no response.

"And stay down," she commanded quietly.

She walked to the set of sliding steel doors and inspected them. She placed her hand on the doors, closing her eyes, and listening. He noticed a slight tremor in her hands. She clutched her fingers together, flexing them to regain control. She looked at Flint, knowing he had seen her hand.

"You want to let me in on the secret?" he asked.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Flint," she protested, trying to recover her poise.

"Up until now, you've been the picture of complete confidence. Now, you look like a green seeing battle for the first time. I want to know why. You owe me that much."

She wiped at her forehead with the back of her hand and leaned on the doors. "I don't owe you a damned thing. I'm saving your collective asses. The least you can do is stop annoying me with questions I'm not allowed to answer."

Without another word, she reached for the control panel to the right of the door and ripped off the housing. The inside was myriad of advanced electronics Flint could only imagine. There were no wires. It was a series of chips and lighted circuits that he could not begin to decipher. Using two fingers, she began pulling out components, dropping them on the floor without care. Soon, there was a hole large enough for her to reach in with her entire hand. She closed her eyes, as if envisioning the guts of the panel. Her hand tightened taking hold of one last piece. She yanked it with force, pulling her hand out quickly as a shower of sparks blew out the hole.

The large silver doors slid open without a sound. Flint raised his rifle, prepared to engage whatever lay beyond them. There was no enemy, though – just another set of silver doors. Suarez stepped inside the small room. Again, the blue field buzzed and lit with her passage through the threshold. Another panel lay in wait. She paused and turned to him.

"You've done your part, Flint. Now, get out of here."

He looked at her sharply. "Not a chance."

"You don't understand," she shot back. "Your job is done. Now, get out of this mountain."

"We're going in together."

She pulled her rifle up at him again, only this time, her finger was solidly on the trigger. "Go home, Flint."

Unlike before, he knew she was not posturing. She meant what she said. He froze, seeing the barrel pointed directly at his gut. Without looking, she put one hand out and touched the control panel. The doors slid open, and she began backing through them into yet another anteroom, holding him at gunpoint. Her body was suddenly enveloped in a shimmering light, red this time, that disappeared after two steps. He watched her back away from him.

The doors began to close. Before she could react, he dove toward the floor, passing through the same field. It tingled on his skin as he launched himself at her. She was out of his vision as he rolled on the floor, bringing up his weapon to bear on her as he landing, kneeling on one knee.

"Goddamn it, Flint!" she yelled, pulling the barrel of her rifle up toward the ceiling.

He held her in his sight, unsure of what she would do next. She threw it against the wall in a controlled rage. The sound of metal on metal was sharp in his ears. The shock of her action was even sharper.

"Just for once, why can't you do what I ask?" she hollered.

"Because you got me into this, and I'm going to see it through to the end," he answered hotly, carefully standing.

"Oh, the irony!" she lamented. "You have _no _idea."

"Then educate me!"

She began pacing manically. "Forget it," she snapped. "I'll figure it out later. We need to get this part done and quick."

"I don't understand!"

"Just do what I tell you from now on!" She moved for the control panel at the next set of doors.

He looked down at the abandoned rifle on the floor. "Aren't you forgetting something?"

She turned back and saw his reference. "It's empty," she said, calming, though some frustration remained. She pulled out her sidearm and readied it in her left hand. "There's only one man in this next room. Don't kill him."

"Why?"

"If he goes, we all go, and in a very nasty way. We need him alive. Ready?"

He nodded. He had no choice. "Ready."

She placed her hand on the panel. Flint aimed for whatever lay beyond the doorway. When they opened, Suarez moved quickly into the room. Flint took the right flank behind her. As she had told him, there was one man inside, his back to the doorway. He was dressed in black pants and a crisp white shirt. His back remained to them as he leaned over a console, supporting himself on his arms. Slick black hair reflected in the diffused lights of the room. Either he did not know they had entered, or he simply did not care.

Flint took a quick look around the room. More banks of monitors were inlayed in the walls and workstations. Unlike the Joe command center, where there were keyboards and chairs, the room was unlike Flint had ever seen. It reeked of computers so advanced that Mainframe would have been like a kid in a candy store for just ten minutes inside the room. For the first time, Flint saw a level of technology he could compare to that in his own time. There was a measuring stick with which he could benchmark just how far ahead they were in Suarez's time over his own.

The information the monitors displayed meant nothing to him, but he had no doubt it did to Suarez. Black polished floors reflected the information that scrolled on the screens, creating a parallel flow of data. She eyed the screen closest to her for a concentrated moment before returning her attention to the man in the room.

Suarez trained her sidearm on the man's back. She was calm, collected. "Temporal Enforcement, James. It's time to go home."

Flint saw the man's shoulder start to shake. A deep, throaty laugh followed, yet the man remained in position. Suarez took a step closer, the nine millimeter secure in her hands. James sighed, the laugh finally subsiding. He shook his head, still facing away from them.

"You have no authority here, Officer. This routine is getting a bit old."

Suarez took another step closer to him. "You've had your fun. Now, it's time to pack it up and go back where you belong."

Before Flint could react, James whipped around and withdrew his own weapon from the belt around his waist. He aimed at Suarez, who did not flinch at the action.

"You're out of your jurisdiction!" James yelled.

Now Flint could see the man's face. James was young, maybe in his late twenties. He had seemed older when he spoke, but his face took away the sense of experience his voice gave him. Ice blue eyes against raven dark hair gave him almost a demonic look, that of a madman. His eyes twitched in agitation as he held his gun up at Suarez. He wore a bracelet like the one Flint had taken off the dead cargo worker in the outer area. Its shiny surface glinted in the rainbow of colors from the screens.

Suarez scowled. "You made it my jurisdiction when you broadcast secured tech documents to a bunch of thugs. I'm getting tired of cleaning up after you."

"I'm tired of all of you playing God," James said, thrusting the gun forward at every other word for emphasis. He addressed Flint. "Do you know what it's like to have an entire world run by fewer than twenty people, to know that you have no control over your destiny? People like this," he said, pointing the barrel at Suarez, "call themselves an authority, but all they really do is stifle free-thinkers like me."

"You didn't think this one through very well, then, James," Suarez said, holding her ground. "We practically waltzed in here. Then again, you had a hard time finding people to commit to this idea of yours, didn't you? Security is pretty lousy."

"My people have vision, Officer," James said resolutely. His voice calmed, became more controlled and confident. "They're willing to risk their lives to take people like you out of power. They know the truth, and they're here to do the right thing."

Flint stole a glance at Suarez. She was standing there stoically, weapon trained on James. She seemed unfazed by his accusations. He, on the other hand, was more than disconcerted by the man's words. James sounded sincere. That put Flint in a difficult position. He knew Suarez had been vague in her reasons for the mission in the first place. Now, James was adding to the conundrum.

He looked at James, lowering the barrel of his rifle ever so slightly but enough that both Suarez and the man noticed.

"What do mean, James?" he asked.

James looked at Flint but did not relinquish his aim at Suarez. "I'll bet this officer hasn't been very forthcoming with you, has she? See, that's the way they work. They do what benefits them the most and keeps them in power."

"Not true," Suarez countered.

"Oh, really?" James challenged. "Your precious Temporal Council holds all the power. So secret, so omnipotent – you say you're protecting us, but we both know that's a lie. It's about power, and it's time someone else has a little of it, to try a different way."

"Give me an option, James," Suarez said, almost as in a plea. "We can both walk away from this, and the timeline will be none the worse for wear. We can go back, and I promise you the Council will hear your grievances."

"I'm tired of talking," James said. "And I'm tired of the echelon of power. It has to be changed, and I'm the one to do it."

Flint listened to the exchange, only becoming more confused by the words flying back and forth.

"Hold on a second," he interjected, raising a hand to stop them. "What is he talking about?"

James answered for Suarez. "I'm talking about a secret sect that controls the lives of everyone. Imagine knowing there are twenty people who can change history to their liking, to further their own agenda. What would you do? You'd fight, wouldn't you?"

"We have never changed the course of time for our benefit, and you know that," Suarez argued.

"No," James said, "you just ignored the opportunity to make things better. You just sit back and let people suffer and die needlessly when you could change it."

Suarez did not relent. "And here you are, where you don't belong, backing the wrong team. It's bad enough you're here, but you're giving power to the wrong side."

James' ire rose again. "We did it your way once! Look where it got us! So much suffering and death, and no one on the Council gave a damn. You all live in your insulated world while others scrape just to survive!"

Flint was trying to keep up with the manic pace of the conversation. He sidestepped, bringing both of them into his firing scope. He had no idea whose side he was on, and he was not willing to take any chances. He angled himself so that he could target either one of them if the need arose. Most of all, it protected him stray fire in either direction.

He tried to process what James was saying. "Where does it get you?" Flint was willing to hear an answer from either one of them.

"More like where it didn't get us," James said.

"Don't go there, James. Even you know revealing future events is off limits," Suarez warned.

James held back for a moment, considering her admonishment. "Not for long," he said to her. "When I'm done, everyone will know the truth. Millions of lives will be saved."

"And no one will believe you," she said sympathetically. "History as you know it will not exist, and you'll be considered a crackpot. All you're doing now is making new problems for the future."

"At least things will be different," James said pointedly.

"By allying with Cobra?" she asked, incredulous. "You don't know what you're doing. Save yourself a step and go sleep with wolves."

He looked at Flint. "Talk about backing the wrong side – she's the devil incarnate. I'm laying the groundwork for others to carry on what I am about to start. You have to believe me."

"James," she said with an air of finality, "I'm only going to ask you one last time – please give me an option."

Seconds passed as the wheels turned in James' head. Then he broke out in a broad, ironic smile. His eyes closed, and again he laughed. He shook his head in disbelief.

"You're a damned Cassie, aren't you?" he asked, though it was more of a revelation.

Flint looked to Suarez again. He saw her throat flex as she swallowed hard. Her jaw was tight, making her temples flex with stress. She said nothing in return.

"What's a 'Cassie'?" Flint asked, directing the question to James, certain Suarez would not answer.

James held fast to his aim at Suarez, his knuckles bleached against the black steel of his gun.

"A 'Cassie'," he said, "is a special breed of the Council's soldiers. They're a privileged little bunch that gets to see the entire timeline . . . right up to their demise. Look at her," he accused, "she's practically swimming in sweat. And wouldn't you be if you knew you were about to die?"

Flint could tell by the look on her face that James was telling the truth. "No one has to die here," he offered. "We can work this out."

Suarez kept an intense eye on James. "No, we can't, Flint," she said simply. "James isn't giving me any options, so it ends here."

The smile fell away from James. "I saw the timeline, too," he said. "It was my last accomplishment before coming here. Like you, I can carefully plan what needs to happen."

"You don't know what you're doing," she warned. She held her stance, no wavering in what Flint was sure had to be tense, sore muscle.

"Come with me," James offered. "We can change the future and our own lives. We can save those millions who don't make it. We can be the saviors of our time."

Suarez shook her head. "I can't let you do that. We've seen what happens, and trust me – it ain't pretty."

"What about you, Flint?" James said. "You willing to risk that she's preventing us from saving so many lives when you could do something about it?"

"Hell," Flint said, "I don't even know what you're talking about."

"Unfortunately," James said, conceding, "she's right. It's not like I can haul you to the future to show you. You're stuck here."

"So are you, James," Suarez said. "You know you can never go back home. Once you change the time here, there's no going back."

"And why the hell would I want to go back?" he queried. "I'll take my chances creating my own timeline, and I guarantee it will be a hell of a lot better than the job your people have done. I've already started. I know I can do this."

Suarez shook her head. "You're not the first to wish that."

"It's not a wish!" He looked to Flint again. "You'd be a powerful man very quickly. Imagine knowing anything you wanted to know. Secrets of the past would be revealed – the Holy Grail, Roswell, Kennedy, Hoffa . . ."

Flint thought about the offer. Its tempting fingers touched his mind and caressed it with the possibilities. He could save Allison, maybe even prevent Cobra's rise to power in the first place. He savored the thoughts, how he could make things better or not even happen at all.

"I don't think Flint's buying that one, James," Suarez said. "You don't know how to control what you've unleashed. We can both walk away from this alive. Give me your weapon and let me take you back where you belong."

"You know what I think?" James said to her. The timbre of his voice said he had made a decision. "I think that only one of us is getting through that door, and I'm absolutely positive it's not going to be you."

Flint watched in slow motion as the two raised their weapons at each other with intent. James leaned forward, as if to close the range to Suarez. She remained positioned and met him head-on. Flint pulled the trigger in a split second, making his choice of targets. In the still of the control room, three bright flashes bounced off the walls as three shots rang out in the waning hours of night. Two bodies reversed their polarity and jumped backward as weapons fire was exchanged. There were two dull thumps as Suarez and James hit the floor.


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's Notes:**

Okay! This chapter is a little quicker in coming! With any luck, I'll wrap this up soon, and there will be no more waiting!

As always, thanks for reviewing and feedback. And as always, redux, this has not been edited. Please bear with it. Enjoy!

**Chapter 11**

Smoke from fired weapons hung in the air like wispy ghosts. Flint saw Suarez facedown on the floor, still and motionless. James lay sprawled, his weapon out of reach. Blood oozed from two wounds – one in the center of his chest and one in his side where Flint had shot him. He was losing volume fast and would not last long without help.

Flint moved forwards carefully, his rifle at the ready. He knelt down next to Suarez, reaching a tentative hand out to touch her. Her sudden flinch at his touch startled him to near standing. All at once, she was alive with writhing. Her body curled into itself in pain, her hand moving upward to her chest. She was turned away from him. Then she was up on her knees and one hand, still cradling her injury.

"Son of a bitch!" she growled in a shout, fighting pain.

He moved in to help her into a sitting position, resting her against the lower panel of a console station. Her hand clutched at the Kevlar vest. For a moment, Flint thought she was reeling from the impact of a stopped bullet until he saw blood threading through her fingers. He put his rifle on the floor and began unfastening the Velcro straps at her side. The quick ripping sounds reverberated in the room. She relinquished her grip long enough for him to remove the protective layer and examine the wound. A neat hole had been punched through the material. When he felt her back, his fingers came away red and warm.

"It's a through and through," he said, referring to the wound.

"No shit," she said with clenched teeth. Her hands were shaking, and she was breathing hard. "Check on him."

Reluctantly, Flint left her side and moved to where James lay motionless on the other side of the control room. The young man's eyes were closed, his breathing ragged.

"Two chest wounds," Flint reported.

Suarez closed her eyes against the pain. "Get some pressure on them. We need him alive."

Flint did as she instructed. He ripped off the sleeve of James' shirt and folded it, creating makeshift bandages. Suarez made her way to a standing position and joined Flint.

"Check his right wrist," she ordered, leaning over, unable to stand straight with the pain. "He should have a bracelet like the others in the cargo area."

He checked James' wrist. Indeed, there was a bracelet, highlighted in red.

"Yeah, he does," Flint reported.

Suarez swallowed hard, looking weaker by the minute. "Good."

She turned to the console behind her and began operating it. Her blood smeared on the polished glass surface as she worked the technology inside it.

"What are you doing?" Flint demanded, trying to keep steady pressure on James' wounds.

"What I came here to do," she said, her voice catching in her throat.

He dared not stop what he was doing to keep James alive. Suarez had made it clear that was important.

She straightened after working at the console and turned toward Flint. She slid down station's housing and sat back against the wall. Her legs flopped out in front of her, muscles weakening, as she leaned back. Her hand went to the cargo pocket of her BDU pants, fishing around until she found her lighter. She pulled it out and observed it in the palm of her hand.

Flint watched her, dismayed. "Hell of a time for a smoke," he said, pointedly.

"Time," she said, breathing quicker now, "is all I have."

With a shaking, bloody hand, she dismantled the Zippo, pulling out the metal insert that held the wick. Tiny blue lights, embedded in the insert, began flashing in manic sequence until it spun out of control. He could not tear his eyes away from it, feeling as though he was watching a bomb near detonation. A bright flash consumed the room. Flint's eyes were assaulted by lightning. He closed them, crying out as his head seemed to split in two.

Then the light was gone.

Darkness surrounded him. He was not sure if his eyes were even open. The absolute blackness enveloped and owned him. His body was sending his brain a thousand signals at once that he tried desperately to interpret. Flint was in a state of nothingness, reaching his hands out blindly, trying to find reference. Panic shot through him, as he feared death had found him.

It started as a faint light. In the distance, he could see it. It was yellow, unsteady, but it grew stronger. He walked toward it, unsure if it was the wisest thing to do and yet knowing he had no choice. The answers were in the light. He needed to know.

As he walked, the light grew stronger. Then he realized it was not just a single point of light but a chorus of them. It was flame dancing in the darkness. Behind it, he thought he saw the outline of a figure sitting, waiting for him. After a few more steps, he was certain. The figure was familiar. The confident posture told him before he ever saw her in detail that it was Suarez sitting by a campfire.

The darkness suddenly came alive around him with tall pines. Their pure scent flowed through him, reminding him that there were things in the world that had not yet been tainted by enemy forces. The ground under his feet became soft with the feel of earth and forest refuse. The murky darkness of nothingness transformed into a dense forest. Suarez eyed his approach for a moment. Then she poked at the fire with a stick she held loosely in her hand. Sparks shot up from the fire. He watched them rise, seeing a myriad of stars above him as was only seen from places that were not polluted with the aura of city lights.

He neared the campfire, feeling the heat emanating from it and warming him. An upturned log waited to serve as a seat for him. He sat down without invitation. Suarez did not look at him right away. She continued to poke at the fire, sending more sparks up into infinity.

"What is this place?" he asked, barely finding his voice.

Finally, she looked at him. Her face was gentle as she smiled slightly. She was calm, uninjured. "A gift to people like me," she said.

"Where are we?"

"We're nowhere. This is an illusion of my choosing."

"How did we get here?"

She jammed the stick into fire again. "This is a temporal bubble. Out there, time has stopped." She pointed back from where he had come with the stick. Its tip glowed orange in the dark night.

He dared to look where she indicated. What he saw was surreal. In the darkness from where he had just come was a view of the control room as he last remembered it. The people inside it were frozen, unmoving. He saw James lying on the floor, blood all around him, and Suarez with the lighter in her hand. Flint saw himself, as he was when she activated the bubble. He had been taken unaware of what she had intended to do.

"Why?" he asked.

"We're given this moment, should we need it, to tie up loose ends," she said. "Some use it to reflect or prolong the inevitable, I guess. It is an environment of our choosing, sometimes our last memory of life before our timelines end."

"What about you?"

She put the stick back in the fire. "I'm using it to give you final instructions, Flint."

"What final instructions?" He managed to focus on her once more.

"We have a slight problem out there," she said, nodding toward the frozen scene.

"I'm afraid to ask," he admitted.

"But you still need to know," she said. "I've activated what is essentially a self-destruct code in the egg. Like I told you, once it begins, everything it has brought will cease to exist."

Knowing there would be one, he asked, "What's the catch?"

She chuckled. "Always to the point, Flint – I like that about you." She regained her composure. "The room can sense how many people are inside it, thus the three dots on that upper screen to the right."

He looked. There were three red dots indicating the relative position of James, Flint and Suarez in the room. One of the dots had a bright highlight around its perimeter.

"The code," she continued, "will not activate until the control room is empty. It's one of those little security measures intended to keep the operator safe and sound in the event of a fold."

"So, why don't you and I just get out of there?"

She smiled contritely. "James managed to put a little glitch in that plan. Try to follow me on this," she said. "I don't have time to explain it twice."

"Okay," he said.

"The egg can differentiate who is from what time. James and I are from the future. You're in this time and space. In order to protect what is to come, the computer will not activate the fold sequence until it is sure nothing will be disrupted by it doing so. In other words, it will not allow those from the future to be destroyed by its actions in order to preserve the way things are meant to be."

He nodded his understanding, though he would have admitted it was confusing had she asked.

"For all it knows," she continued, "I should not be here.

"You, on the other hand," she said, pointing at him with the waning length of the stick, "are my past. If you are destroyed, then the future as the egg knows it cannot exist. Therefore, it becomes the egg's priority that you survive. The egg's technology still understands that the timeline should be preserved as much as possible. Otherwise, James' birth might never come to pass."

"So, how has James been able to change things in my time?"

"You're part of a very long equation. As long as key elements remain intact, James will be born in the future, but the opportunities presented to him will be different, allowing him to rise to a level of power that could potentially destroy everyone and everything."

"He's picking and choosing his changes," Flint concluded.

Suarez smiled, pleased at his grasp of what was happening. "He's creating his own mini-evolutions to influence the future. They're strategic changes, starting with empowering Cobra to bring down your Joe comrades early on in the game. Once the tide turns to, shall we say, the 'evil' side, there will be nothing to stand in his way to power."

"But once we cause the egg to fold, all those changes disappear?"

"Not entirely, but it will be enough to keep everything in check to bring alignment back as close as possible. Primarily, the arsenal he's planted in this mountain will dissolve."

He looked back at the frozen scene, eyeing the lighter in her hand with its blue glow.

"What about you? Why don't you just go back and start over? You could correct your mistakes and change everything the way it should be."

She looked at him directly. "Because you're my evolution, Flint," she told him. "The moment you entered that room with me, you changed my future."

"How?"

Suarez considered her words. "James was right when he called me a Cassie. My life is supposed to end in this time and space. This is a one-shot deal. I can't go back. I die here, Flint, and this is the end of me. My timeline does not proceed forward when this is finished."

"There has to be another way," he protested.

"No," she said solemnly. "That's why we're able to look to the future to the point of death. We can't look beyond it, because there is no beyond. His time ends here, and so does mine."

"Look," he said, bargaining, "we leave him and we'll both get out of here alive."

She smiled ruefully. "That's tempting, except James put a little failsafe into the plan. You know that bracelet on his wrist?"

"Yeah."

"Well," she said with a sigh, "only the person wearing it can get out of that control room. I managed to make it so I – we – could get in there. Getting out is something else. Even if I was tempted to make a run for it, I couldn't."

"What happens if you try to leave and don't have the bracelet on?"

"Ashes. Instant ashes. You're dust under a broom. If the systems can't authenticate someone's presence in either direction, it eliminates the perceived threat."

Flint was trying to internalize it all but felt he was failing at it. It was clear Suarez understood every implication and was willing to sacrifice herself for her cause.

"What happens now?"

Suarez looked at the frozen piece of time behind them. "Well, if you do the math, there's only one way this can go down." Then she looked at him again. "You have to kill me."

He felt the blood drain from his face. "What?"

"It's the only way, Flint. The sequence won't activate if I'm alive, and my wound isn't going to kill me any time soon. James is on his last few breaths, but I can survive that hole in my shoulder. I need you to ensure my death."

"That's not an option," he said, shaking his head.

"It's the only option," she argued. "You get that band off James before he dies so the lifelink isn't broken. Then you do what you have to do and get the hell out of there before it goes. You'll have fifteen minutes to make it to the surface and clear the compound."

He was still shaking his head. "No, I can't."

"If you don't, then things are going to be very screwed up, and in ways you couldn't imagine."

He cradled his head in his hand, watching the flames of the fire. "There has to be another way," he said in a desperate whisper.

"In the original timeline, I set the fold sequence in motion. James and I have a mutual kill, and that's that. The world is saved. You changed, that, though. So, I have to make sure what was intended to happen actually does, even if it means improvising."

She jabbed the stick into the fire. "Promise me, Flint. Do what should be done."

Though he knew he could never know the future or the past as she saw it, everything in him screamed that she was right. She had come this far in order to help them, and he truly believed she had every good intention. James had tried to entice him with power, and that tasted badly in the back of Flint's throat.

"Please," she asked one final time.

"Just tell me what to do," he vowed.

She stood up and stretched her arms over her head, looking calm for someone he had just promised to kill. Suarez yawned, as though the hour was late and the mountain air was having its effect on her.

The fire began to grow faint. Darkness began moving in around them. Flint felt as though water were rushing toward him. He took deep breaths, fighting the sense of claustrophobia that was overcoming him.

Suarez gave him a flick of her fingers in a small salute. "See you on the flipside, Flint."

He was not prepared for the flash of light as it zinged through his eyes, into his brain, and out the back of his skull. Just when he though his head was going to explode, he was back in the control room, breathing in a gulp of air as he returned to control of his body.

Suarez was sitting there, looking at him. Then she carefully reassembled the lighter and put it in her pocket. Her hand went back to the wound on her shoulder. It was subconsciously, the body's natural reaction to injury.

"Get the band off him, Flint. Make sure you don't lose skin contact," she ordered, the confidence in her voice gone and replaced by the marked pain she felt. "Just slide it over onto your wrist and secure it."

His mind was still processing the fire scene as he moved over James and picked up the man's limp arm. Carefully, he released the clasp on the underside. Then he put his own wrist parallel to James' and slid the band across until it was safely against his own skin.

James was barely breathing. A few moments after Flint secured the clasp on his own wrist, James died, his chest exhaling for the last time, blood ceasing to flow from the hole where Suarez's bullet had torn through his flesh. Likewise, Flint's mark drew still.

Suarez looked up nervously at the console. The highlight of the locator changed to that of Flint's position. He heard her breathe heavily in relief at his success in the transference. The dot that represented James blanked into blackness, just like his existence was no more.

"Good," she praised. "Now, the second part."

He had not had time to think of what he would do to fulfill his promise to her. "How?"

Never at a loss for words, she said, "Preferably something quick and painless," her voice quivering. She tapped her head with her index finger. "I suggest a well-placed shot to my temple."

Flint stopped, frozen in his actions. He looked down at her, suddenly seeing her differently than he had since she entered his life. She was a patriot, a hero for the good side, not simply willing to lay down her life for the right but actively bringing her life to a conclusion for the sake of the way things should be. If she had been a part of his time, she would easily have made it on the Joe team. She believed in what she was doing, willing to sacrifice herself for others.

She looked up at him. Her forehead was shiny with perspiration. "Flint, not to sound clichéd, but time's a'wastin'."

His hand slipped to his sidearm holster, his thumb releasing the buckle. The nine-millimeter felt heavy in his hand, cold and foreign. He pulled it out and held it down at his side, barrel pointing away from her. She saw his hesitation. Her hand shot out and grasped his wrist, pulling the barrel to her head.

"Do it, Flint," she said, nearly in a whisper, breath sounding in staccato intakes. A brim of tears welled in her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. She pulled the barrel tighter against her temple.

His finger slipped around the trigger. She held the pistol firmly against her skin, as though fearing he might deny her this last act. He felt the tremor of her hand translate up his arm like a shockwave. It rippled through his soul as she waited to die, waited for him to apply pressure to the trigger and fulfill her destiny. He had promised to end her life, to put a bullet in her head to seal her fate.

Flint looked over at James, who lay motionless and cold on the control room floor. The crimson gore around him was congealing in the forced air from the ventilation system. Somewhere in the course of death, James had opened his eyes a little. The lights above sparkled in the exposed tissue, giving the sense that he was not really dead, just sleeping. The blood, though, told a different story. James had bled to death, most of it collecting under him and soaking his pristine white shirt. The rest was still contained in his chest cavity where it had escaped his heart.

Flint's mind raced ahead of his actions, envisioning the result of her wish. The bullet would effectively launch the contents of her skull all over the adjacent wall. The entry wound would be clean, marred only by the halo of gunpowder from a contact shot. If viewed from only on side, it would be bearable. However, if the body were to be viewed from the opposite side, one would find a gaping hole big enough for a fist. The bullet would carry obstacles, in this case brain matter and bone, with it and eject it out the other side. Suarez was requesting a gruesome death. That, he decided in his raging thoughts, was something she did not deserve.

"I can't," he whispered weakly. "I can't."

Her eyes closed in frustration. "Flint, please," she begged feebly. "You have to do this. I have to die, and you have to live." She sniffed sharply, trying with everything she had not to lose her composure.

He slipped the barrel from her hand. She did not resist him, letting it slide through her fingers until it was completely out of contact. She heaved a sob, screwing her eyes shut in what he knew was both relief and anguish.

Her eyes were still closed. She regained some power over her emotions. "I don't want to see it coming," she said. "You have to finish this."

Flint could not prolong her suffering. He raised the gun and pointed it at her head again. Then his hand whipped back like a slingshot, bringing the barrel down solidly on the base of her skull, knocking her unconscious. She slumped forward and to the left, rolling onto the floor. Her arms lost tone as the signal from her brain to her muscles ceased fire.

He slipped down beside her on the floor and hauled her up, cradling her upper body in his arms. He stroked her hair, trying to comfort her even though he knew it was unlikely she was feeling much of anything at all. Flint clamped his eyes shut, knowing what he had to do but resenting it just the same. The very least he could do was make sure she, indeed, did not see it coming.

After a moment, he brought his hand to her face, caressing her cheek with the back of his fiingers in one last gentle gesture. Then, slowly, he placed his large hand solidly over her nose and mouth and cut off her air supply.


	12. Chapter 12

**Author's Note:**

We're getting closer to the conclusion! Thanks again for the feedback. Makes writing this more fun. I hope you are continuing to enjoy it. As always, praise and complaints are both welcome. After all, this is just for fun . . . and it's a lot cheaper than a therapist. :)

**Chapter 12**

Guilt rode through his hands in a torrent as he held her, taking her life. She had pleaded with him to finish what she had started, but he knew it was a sin for which he would not likely ever be able to gain sufficient forgiveness. His eyes strayed upward to the monitor, waiting for the graphic that represented what was left of the life in her body to dissipate into death and disappear. He saw her hands twitch involuntarily as she faded. He worried that she might be aware enough to realize what he was doing to her, robbing her of precious oxygen.

Muscles that he thought were already relaxed went even slacker as the last of her will to live left her. In but a moment, she was gone. Without any fanfare or announcement, her icon disappeared from the monitor, showing that Flint was the only living soul in the control room. He carefully removed his hand from her face, his fingers curling inward with the guilt of his actions. With all the care he had, he slid out from underneath her and laid her gently on the floor. Flint saw the marks where his fingers had sealed around her mouth.

He got to his feet. A rage was building inside him, like a storm on the ocean. There had been too many like her who had sacrificed themselves for the cause of freedom and justice. His emotions were roiling inside his chest as he stepped over to where James lay on the floor.

"You stupid, selfish bastard," he said low, with a shake of his head. His skin felt hot with seething rage.

The anger welled in him at an uncontrollable rate. He looked once more to where Suarez lay dead on the floor, the result of his own hand ending her life. His mind raced to Allison, keenly aware that James was also responsible for the bullet that had pierced her back and had nearly killed her. Her life would be changed forever, and it was solely James' fault. She would never be the same. The emotional scars would carry on with the physical ones, reminding her every day that she had paid a high price for ideals.

Flint reached down and grasped the man by the shirt, hauling him up with rage. The body seemed light in his arms as he flung it toward the doorway,

"You stupid bastard!" he hollered as he launched James into the shimmering field.

He wanted to see James vaporized, turned to ash as punishment. But, just as James had probably escaped most turmoil in life, he did so in death. His body sailed through the field, landing on the other side in a heap.

Flint's disappointment that James had not been fried lasted only a split second before the realization dawned on him that what Suarez had warned about the field had not come to pass. His heart quickened at the possibility. The screen showed only one icon – his. Suarez was not a factor according to the sensors. Neither was James. He had passed without incident through the field. The synapses in Flint's mind fired in calculation of the possibilities.

He wasted no time in slinging his rifle over his shoulder and picking her up, placing her over his shoulder. He could do it, he repeated to himself. At the very least, she would not be in the control room when everything ended. He owed her that much to try. Her warning that the countdown would begin once he left the control room repeated in his head. It occurred to him that having her about his shoulder might trigger a security response in the systems, but he was willing to take the chance.

He looked back once more at the monitor, ironically to ensure she was dead. With a deep breath, he plunged forward through the field. Electricity tingled over his skin. His vision was filtered with red. It seemed an eternity before the field was behind him. James lay in the hallway, obstructing the pathway to freedom. His grip around Suarez's legs tightened when he felt her slipping off his shoulder. His boots ground into James' back as he trudged forward, carrying Suarez out of the room with haste.

All at once, alarms began sounding, calling for evacuation. He glanced at his watch, noting the time. She had said fifteen minutes. He hoped that was fact and not an estimate, though something told him estimates were not a part of her repertoire.

He barely registered the dead he passed as he ran toward the staircase that led down to the cargo area. He looked out over the warehouse. The exit seemed so far away, and he did not have that kind of time to waste. Suarez deserved a better chance than that. He had to give her that chance. Flint looked about desperately for an answer and spotted a cargo mover. He was not sure how fast it could go, but his legs were beginning to burn under the strain of carrying her. He had to at least try.

The cargo carrier looked much like a golf cart to him except for the hydraulic skids pointed outward in front of it like Flint moved to the passenger side of the vehicle and carefully lowered Suarez into the seat, balancing her so that she would not fall. Then he slipped into the driver's seat. Her limp body slumped against him.

He looked down at the controls with desperation, realizing he had no idea how to operate the vehicle. There was no steering wheel, no ignition switch. Where controls should have been was a blank panel except for one tiny light, which he presumed to show the vehicle had power.

"State destination." The voice was female, coming from the panel.

His heart leapt at the development. "Out of the cargo hold."

"State transport speed."

"As fast as possible!"

The cart lurched forward under his command. It began to pick up speed, efficiently dodging stacks of pallets as it meandered toward the hold's exit. He jammed his foot into a tiny alcove in the floorboard to steady himself against the sudden changes in direction.

He turned to Suarez and pulled her to him, laying her across his lap. He closed off her nose with his fingers and covered her mouth with his, giving her the first breath in almost three minutes. She was lifeless in his arms as he tried to revive her. Her chest rose with each breath he gave her. He tried pressing down on her heart with his hand, but the angle was all wrong. He could not get the force he needed to make a difference. Still, he continued his efforts, knowing it was better than not trying at all.

The cart continued to make speed toward the cargo ramp. He could see it in the distance in the one moment he looked up from his efforts. The white light of the mountain's storage area gleamed like a beacon, beckoning the vehicle to salvation. Small flashes of light pulsed intermittently in the far reaches of the cargo hold, beyond his direct vision.

He pressed two fingers down on her neck, desperately trying to find a pulse. If there was one, it escaped his touch. Doc's numerous first aid training sessions rang out in his mind to never give up on a patient. There was hope as long as the rescuer kept trying. He redoubled his efforts to pump her heart with his hand as they traveled down the rows of cargo. It seemed that the exit was an eternity away, as though the cart would never reach it. He was tiring quickly, his muscles burning. He was breathing hard, deprived of his own natural breathing by his want to bring her back among the living.

The carrier made one last turn. He could see the ramp less than fifty feet in the distance. He had no idea where the cart would stop, but he decided to let it go. It was moving faster than he could have run with her weight on his shoulders. Flint took a moment to check his watch. It seemed like an eternity had passed, but it had only been two minutes. Despite that, he knew those few ticks of the clock had been precious seconds off her life. He had been breathing for her, but it was not enough. If he could not bring her back soon, it would be entirely too late. Her skin was already turning more pale and cold.

The cart came to an abrupt stop at the top of the ramp. Her body shifted forward in his arms. He clutched at her to keep her from falling. Flint slid out from underneath her and laid her gently on the seat. He rounded the front of the cart and positioned himself where he could pull at her arms, bringing her over his shoulder again. He had no idea what he was going to do to help her, but he knew that the last place he should be for any chance was inside the egg. His boots thumped down the ramp with resounding pings as he ran toward the mountain's control room. His slung rifle over his shoulder punched at his kidneys with each step. He ignored the bruise forming there and continued running through offloaded piles of cargo toward the exit to the egg's sanctuary.

He saw movement at the door of the control room. He reached back with his left hand to bring his rifle up into position when he heard a familiar voice.

"Flint!" Scarlett yelled, her face coming into view as she emerged at the top of the steps to the control room. Leatherneck followed a step behind her.

"Help me!" he ordered, not bothering to hide the desperation he felt. He bounded up the three steps into the control room.

Scarlett helped him lay Suarez out flat on the floor. She felt for a pulse on the doctor but found none.

"What happened?" Scarlett asked, leaning down to listen for breathing.

"She suffocated. We can't leave her here," he said adamantly yet with desperation, suddenly having no idea what to do next.

Scarlett looked up at Leatherneck. "The infirmary down the hall," she said in solution, looking up at Leatherneck.

The sergeant did not hesitate. He reached down and scooped up Suarez in his large arms. She must have been lighter to the bulked Marine than she had to Flint, who was now shaking with exhaustion. Flint noticed a deep cut on Leatherneck's forehead, where he had presumably used his skull as a weapon, as Suarez had said. Blood had been wiped away, smeared across the wide expanse of his forehead.

They ran as a group headlong down the hallway. Once again, Flint caught a view of the battle carnage he and Suarez had inflicted on the enemy. Evacuation warnings sounded throughout the facility, telling its occupants to get to a minimum safe distance, that there was extreme danger.

Leatherneck led the pack to the security doors at the end of the corridor. When Flint looked at the security doors, he realized that Scarlett and Leatherneck had used the same means to punch through it as Suarez had through other doors – they had blasted it with C4. Strangled metal flowered out toward them where the clay had torn through the door. One of the doors had been pushed to the side to allow entry into the corridor. Leatherneck stepped through it, careful to avoid the sharp edges that threatened to grab at his charge.

The hall outside the main corridor was still dark, but the light from where they were was enough to differentiate features. He remembered seeing the infirmary, registering it as a landmark when he and Suarez had infiltrated the area. Scarlett slipped on her nightvision goggles, with Flint following in kind. Leatherneck forged ahead, using the remaining light from the corridor behind them.

He looked at his watch. Time was slipping by too fast.

"We have nine minutes to get out of here," he announced to them. "A self-destruct has been started."

He expected argument from his two comrades. They deserved to know, to have a choice. There was time for them to make it out of the mountain. Trying to save Suarez would most likely prove fatal, but Leatherneck continued forward, determined.

"Then we better move fast," Leatherneck said, picking up his pace toward the infirmary, his steps falling in a quick trot.

There were voices in the distance. Flint took aim down the hall, anticipating an assault on their progress, but all he saw were the workers from the control room frantically trying to get out of the facility. They paid no attention to Flint and his crew as they blindly searched for a way out of the mountain.

He saw the medical facility entrance ahead of them. Leatherneck slipped inside it, maneuvering Suarez through the doorway.

A gurney sat in the center of the room, surrounded by cabinets with medical supplies. Large lights overhead would have illuminated a patient quite well if there had been power available. Leatherneck and Scarlett had done their part, though, plunging the facility into darkness.

"Get her on the table," Scarlett said, dropping her weapon on a counter. She looked around the room, taking an inventory of what was available to them, then pushed the nightvision goggles up to the crown of her fiery red hair.

The dim light from the hall gave Suarez's body a ghostly look in the nightvision. Leatherneck turned on his field flashlight, washing their point of their focus in a red glow. Flint ripped off his goggles once more and began to redouble his CPR efforts, this time able to do so with more value.

Scarlett called to Leatherneck. "Here," she said, tossing an ambu-bag at him.

He caught it and smoothly placed it over the doctor's mouth, squeezing off the first solid breath of air she had in more than three minutes. Flint checked his watch. It had taken just a minute to get to the infirmary.

"Eight minutes," he announced to them, putting one hand over another and pressing down on her sternum with effectiveness he lacked in the cargo transporter.

Scarlett pulled over a cart. She flicked a switch on the side. A monitor glowed to life, waiting for a signal. She pulled defibrillator paddles off the machine and stretched the line over to the gurney. Flint stopped what he was doing and began tearing at the tank top Suarez wore. The edge of the fabric was sewn strong. His shaking hands could not break the tailored seam of the scoop of the tank.

"Never mind," Scarlett said. "Back up."

She moved in with the paddles, slipped them underneath the tank top at the top and side and pressed the triggers. She waited until Flint and Leatherneck were clear of the body before firing off the first shock. Suarez's arm muscles contracted, her torso rising up and returning to the gurney hard. Scarlett held the paddles in place, watching the monitor for any signs of life. Flint remembered Lifeline gushing on about how the paddles, themselves, recorded heartbeats if held to the skin, eliminating the immediate need for monitor leads.

"Nothing. Charge it again, two-sixty," she told Leatherneck.

He adjusted the power and depressed the charge button on the unit. Flint heard a high whine as the charge built. Audible beeps signaled the machine was ready. Scarlett shocked Suarez again. The results were the same.

Scarlett returned the paddles to the station again. Flint started compressions again, assisted by Leatherneck while Scarlett tore open the drawers of the resuscitation unit. Leatherneck fell into rhythm with Flint, breathing for Suarez at even intervals.

Scarlett pulled out a vial from the drawer, drawing out a measure of the contents in a syringe in the light of Leatherneck's flashlight. She pushed up Suarez's sleeve and patted the skin there with the back of her hand, trying to raise a vein. She prodded until she found a satisfactory point and injected the contents into Suarez. Flint continued pressing down on Suarez, pumping her heart with his hands.

"You two need to get out of here," Flint said, breathing hard. "Seven minutes, and you're going to regret being my friends."

"All for one, and one for all, Flint," Leatherneck said, squeezing in another breath into Suarez. "We all go together."

"Charging again," Scarlett announced with purpose. She put the steel of the paddles on Suarez once more as Flint and Leatherneck backed away from the body on the gurney. The whine of the machine reached its highest pitch. She pressed the trigger on the paddles once more.

Suarez's muscles constricted in the shock's wake. Scarlett held the contacts in place again, looking to the monitor for a reading. Tiny dips and spikes appeared on the screen, dancing across the monitor in a choreographed pattern. Scarlett put the paddles back on the cart. The sound of Leatherneck pushing another breath of air into Suarez filled Flint's ears.

"We need to go," she announced, reiterating the sentiment of the warnings sounding in the hall through the automated system.

Leatherneck moved in and picked Suarez off the table, cradling her in his large arms. Flint checked the time.

"Six minutes," he said, picking up his goggles and slipping them on his head.

Scarlett retrieved her weapon as Flint took point in the hallway.

"There's got to be another way out of here," he said.

Leatherneck entered the hallway next to them. He turned to the left, hefting Suarez in his arms. "When you want cheese, you follow the rat."

They looked down the hall at the scientists clawing blindly at the walls for clues of their location. Flint took off after them at a dead run. He had an overwhelming urge to open fire on them, but knew it would interrupt their search for escape. Suarez was right – Cobra was big on having a means to get out if the fire got too hot. That was a secret that was probably known to those who worked in the area. They had to be close to the cheese.

Flint spotted Gideon, the scientist Suarez had spared in the control room. He was groping the wall, feeling his way in the dark. He had separated from the group, conducting his own search for a way out of the mountain. He went right while the others continued left in the intersecting hall. Flint stayed a few steps behind him, moving cautiously and watching Gideon's every move.

The mountain shook with a groan. The floor jostled from side to side. Flint was thrown to the right. He pushed out his hand to buffer his fall into the concrete walls of the corridor. Gideon was not so fortunate. He lost his balance and crashed to the floor with the shake. He scrambled to his feet again and resumed his desperate search for a way out of the complex with ardor.

Flint looked back to see how Scarlett and Leatherneck had fared against the assault. Both were on their feet. He was amazed to see Leatherneck had not succumbed to the turbulent floor with Suarez in his arms. He held her closer to him, as though using her body as a balancing rod.

Gideon felt along the wall. His fingers touched a control panel, feeling its surface. He seemed to identify with it. He began making a hasty path down the way, his hands feeling along the wall for reference as he moved. He stopped at each doorway he encountered, finally entering the fourth he found. Flint followed silently behind him, watching his every move.

Gideon stopped, looking behind him in the darkness, perhaps sensing he was being followed. Then he proceeded further into the room. Flint took time to assess the new surroundings. It looked like a data lab. It was nothing in particular but a place to research information. Computer consoles lines the walls, and binders of documents were stored on metal shelves. Gideon continued inside, groping at the consoles along the wall for guidance until he came to one of the shelves. His fingers slid over the books like a Braille student reading text. He took hold of the outer walls of the unit and pulled sharply, ducking to the side to avoid being crushed.

The shelf slammed into the concrete floor with a loud bang that made Flint jump. The sound was sharp in his ears. The complex shook again, sending another shelf to the floor on the other side of the room. It did not seem to faze Gideon. He reached out to the wall where the first shelf had stood and began feeling along its surface, searching by touch. He pulled downward suddenly, revealing a control panel that lit up in Flint's nightvision goggles. Before he could react, Gideon activated the panel.

A large door opened, spearing Flint's eyes with bright light that obliterated his vision. He tore off his goggles but was still blinded by the white that had filled the tiny screens over his eyes. When he recovered, he saw Gideon standing there, startled and with hands raised in the air.

"Please, don't kill me," Gideon said in a shaking voice.

Flint had no intention of doing that unless the man made it necessary. "Where does this lead?" he said, pointing his rifle at the opening in the wall.

"To the surface," Gideon said. "We have to leave. This place will be destroyed."

"Yeah, I heard that somewhere," Flint said as the base's warning system chanted its mantra. He flipped the barrel of his rifle to the side, indicating Gideon to get out of the way.

Leatherneck and Scarlett moved ahead of Flint into the elevator car and waited for him, with Scarlett taking guard of Gideon.

Flint rounded Gideon, staying out of his reach and possible attack. He backed into the elevator, watching the young man.

"Please," Gideon pleaded, "take me with you." He took a step forward.

Golden light flashed behind Gideon as objects began disappearing. They winked out of existence with a searing sound. It was object by object, but Flint knew it would eventually progress to larger things, like entire rooms and the structure of the underground mountain complex.

"Please!" Gideon shouted, alarmed. He stepped onto the overturned bookcase.

Flint raised his rifle at him. Under other circumstances, he might have relented and spared the man's life. Suarez, though, had said that Gideon should perish. Flint embraced the idea of evolutions and that there were certain things that must come to pass, despite the mechanism of the event. Though he did not know the details of the timeline or how things were supposed to be according to Suarez's knowledge, he did understand that her mission was to restore the timeline and keep things in a natural order. That meant Gideon must meet his fate in the mountain. At the very least, he had been a part of Allison being wounded and now, Suarez. Gideon deserved to die as an enemy of free people.

The decision was taken from Flint. The bookcase suddenly winked out of existence, taking Gideon with it without so much as a yelp. Bookcase and body were dissolved into nothingness as time began folding in on itself.

"Not this time," he said.

He backed into the elevator completely. Scarlett touched the control panel. The door closed, and the car began to rise.

Flint checked his watch. "Two minutes."

They looked to the panel on the wall, which ticked off the floors as the car rose up the mountain. Flint's legs felt heavy as the car picked up speed toward the surface. The numbers began to scroll faster, but he knew it would be close.

He looked over at Suarez. She looked small and vulnerable in Leatherneck's arms. The wound in her shoulder seeped bright red blood. He knew it was a double-edged sword. As long as she was bleeding, her heart was beating; as long as she was bleeding, she was in danger of dying.

"Any idea where this is going to put us?" Scarlett dared to ask.

Flint shook his head. "At this point, anything is better than down there."

He watched the numbers intently, willing the car to throttle faster to the surface. With seventeen floors to go, he checked his watch again. They had little over a minute to get clear once the car stopped. The numbers began to slow. He felt panic creep up his spine as he realized the drive was nearing the top of the shaft. The car had to slow so as not to slam into the top of the shaft, but it was slowing down too much. He counted down the remaining floors with furtive glances at his watch, timing the decrease in rise to the seconds of their lives ticking away with abandon.

When the last floor shown on the panel, he looked down at his watch. They had twenty-eight seconds to clear the area, to make it to safety and not be obliterated. The door to the car opened, sending a blast of cold mountain air in on them. He was immediately met by shouts of guards scrambling to leave the compound. Flint jumped out of the car, turning quickly left and right for targets. There were targets, but none of them threatened him. They were Cobra guards running for their lives and did not have time to pay attention to him. He realized, then, that the car had placed them on the opposite side of the compound where they had first infiltrated.

Scarlett pushed out past him, pointing to an open gate a hundred feet ahead of them. He looked back to make sure Leatherneck was not falling too far behind them. The marine had transferred Suarez to his shoulder, carrying her like a sack of potatoes.

Flint heard the searing sound behind them. Bright gold light reflected off the snow with blinding brilliance. He saw the silhouettes of Scarlett and Leatherneck on either side of him, backlit by the dim security lights of the compound. They were running for their lives into the rough hill that ran upward toward the peak of the mountain. They had seen what happened when a body was in contact with something was reclaimed by time and were desperately trying to escape Gideon's fate.

His boots slipped on the iced surface. The snow became deeper, slowing their progress to safety. He looked back to Leatherneck and saw him struggling to hold Suarez and run at the same time. Flint reached out and grabbed on to Leatherneck's vest, pulling him along in the deepening snow. He had no idea how far they needed to go to escape the wrath of time and space, but he knew they should just keep running until there was no more running to be done. Bright flashes were snapping off at a rapid rate behind them. He dared not look back at it lest he lose a precious second to get out of the way.

The searing became a roar in his ears as the final disassembly of the base began. Even before it really hit, he felt the wave of heat building in the air, snapping with energy. The air became warm, like a tropical breeze out of its environment. Time slowed, pulled inward toward the destruction. They were running away from it, using every ounce of energy to escape its pull. Then the tide turned like a slingshot, propelling them forward with violent force. Flint's feet left the ground as his body was suddenly brought airborne by the fold. Out of his periphery, he saw more bodies launched in the air. It all seemed to be in slow motion again. Suarez was parallel with him, body limp and unaware.

Leatherneck's arms were outstretched in a defensive manner, to ward off the impact that was coming. Scarlett was twisted sideways, her face caught in an alarmed grimace. Flint heard his own breath leaving his lungs slowly as one last blast of golden light gradually blossomed behind him. It began to illuminate the world as he knew it, turning the pristine white landscape a golden yellow, like a summer sunset on the water. Then a myriad of color invaded his vision, and sound became still silence. His body was suspended in time, frozen yet aware that there was more to come. Heat enveloped him in a loving embrace, comforting him in a time of death and destruction for others.

Just as he thought all time and space had stopped completely, he was launched forward into the snow bank in front of him. He hit hard, feeling like a linebacker had used him for practice. Hot white light filled his vision as his head impacted with the packed snow. It scraped his cheek, a contradictory burn of heat and cold as the ice dug into his skin. His body tumbled across the landscape, his arms flapping with a loss of control.

He came to a stop on his back. At first, he felt nothing. Then his body remembered to breath. The night air was icy and clean as it filled his lungs in a desperate gulp. He yearned for more, not able to get enough at one time. His eyes focused on the night sky. It was clear and pristine, the perfect window into all that was to come and all that had been. Stars were a view of history, some not even in existence anymore, their light just now reaching Earth's sight.

He lay there on the snow, prone and on his back, feeling the cold of the mountain seep through his clothes and into the core of his body. He was not even sure he could move his arms and did not care to try. They were fine just where they were. All energy had been sapped from him. It was a chore just to move his eyes. Still, the gears in his brain moved, trying to process what had just happened, even though it was still just out of reach.

Then Flint remembered Suarez. Frames of images fired in his mind. First, she was alive, then dead. Then she was alive. He was coherent enough to wonder if she was dead again.

He looked around with his eyes, trying to find her. Leatherneck – he had been carrying her just a step behind Flint. Scarlett had been there, too, though he had no reference of where she was when everything began to end. Flint looked around with his eyes, trying to find them.

The moon was rising over opposite pass, a white disc of nighttime comfort from his boyhood. He imagined walking on it one day, dreaming of its silence and mystery. The first light of the rising moon cast its glow on the mountain snow. He craned his eyes to the right. Silhouetted against the moon was Suarez, breath escaping her lips in a frosty fog.

A roar began in the back of his skull. It thumped rhythmically in his body, out of synch with his heart but patterned all its own. He looked up at the stars again, looking for the source. The wind began to pick up, whistling over the broken mountain terrain, kicking up a fine spray of snow that melted when it hit his face. He did not bother to locate what was causing it anymore. He was too tired and too sore to care.

Flint closed his eyes and fell asleep next to the breathing body of Suarez.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13 

The debriefing was a litany of questions from Duke and Mainframe. The answers were carefully documented and cataloged. Hawk sat at the head of the long table, listening and observing. His silence was more disconcerting than the probing Duke was doing into the whole incident.

The questions were difficult to answer. Flint heard echoes of Suarez's warnings in his mind of revealing too much of the future. To withhold information would have been wrong, but to tell the truth would have been much worse. Twice, he had tried the amnesia defense, but Duke was not biting. There was a chunk of time missing between when Scarlett and Leatherneck left Flint and Suarez and when they once again saw each other. He tried to forget the inner details of the egg so that he would have no answers when he was asked for them. Everything had been so vivid, though, he doubted he could forget it all in a lifetime or more.

His mind drifted to the helicopter ride off the mountain. The beer tally was racking up for Wild Bill. Flint decided it would be easier to buy three cases of thanks and call it even. Bill had picked them up on the mountain, flying into the unknown one more time. A small contingent of troopers had dragged Flint's team aboard and airlifted them out of the danger zone and back to the base. Mountain troopers arrived on the scene a short while later to round up the Cobra stragglers who had managed to escape the base's destruction. The base from which the enemy had escaped was no more. The land returned to its natural state, unaltered except for the imprint of boots in the snow.

Flint cooperated in the briefing as best he could without betraying too much information. He was eager to get out of the meeting and see how Jaye was doing. He also wanted to see how Suarez was faring. Doc had given a decent prognosis for both but one dependent on time and expert care. Flint was coherent enough when they chopper landed to fill Doc in on some of the sordid details of what happened inside the mountain, such as the fact that Suarez had stopped breathing and had been revived. Through the haze of muscle ache and general shock, he was able to convey how long she had been down and what Scarlett had done to bring her back. That was sixteen hours earlier. Suarez was holding strong.

He looked over at Scarlett and Leatherneck. Both had dragged themselves to the debriefing, looking as bad as Flint felt. They were battling exhaustion and soreness from the ordeal. Leatherneck was sporting a butterfly bandage in the center of his forehead where the skin had split. The skin was beginning to bruise, forming a large blue disc in the center of an otherwise pasty white forehead.

Scarlett showed no visible signs of injury, but her eyes told a different story. She looked exhausted and sore. Her posture was lazy, an attempt to assuage aching muscles and a weary spirit.

The mission had been successful by all accounts. Mop troops had apprehended seventeen Cobra troopers who would be summarily interrogated for information by Joe handlers and perhaps by some operatives from outside agencies. The outside agents were a dark breed. They did not socialize, not even for a cup of coffee and small talk.

Words in the form of questions droned about the room. Flint realized his mind had been drifting. His thoughts were bouncing through a million points of concern. It did not help that he was so tired his skin ached. It prickled painfully when the air vent above him kicked on and pushed a wave of cool air into the room. Leatherneck and Scarlett dutifully answered the questions Duke posed to them, giving up information as they knew it. Duke was asking, and Mainframe was writing. Hawk, though, was studying Flint.

Flint caught the stare, and it was disconcerting. Something was wrong. He felt the distinct sensation that there was a shoe waiting to drop heavily in the room, only he had no idea what it was. He had been a dutiful officer under Hawk's leadership, and he had come to know the man well enough to know when the whole story was not being told by the commander of the Joe team.

The door to the room opened. A man in a dark blue suit, finely tailored, stepped inside with a cup of coffee and a folder under his arm.

"Sorry I'm late," the man said, pulling out of a chair and sitting down in it, as though he was a regular part of such meetings. He put the mug on the table in front of him and placed the folder carefully next to it, making himself at home.

The man had a youthful look, with close-cropped brown hair that smacked of regular military interaction. He was regulation issue all the way. His jaw was regal and smooth but strong. Large shoulders and a broad neck suggested he favored weightlifting on a regular basis. Flint placed his age at no more than forty.

The room fell silent at his entrance. All heads turned toward him in curiosity. That is, all heads but Hawk's. He simply looked down at the table with his eyes and said nothing. His face was hard, refusing to look at the man or any of those at the table.

"Well," the man said cheerfully, "looks like our little Joes have had a busy night."

Duke was not impressed. "And you are?" he asked sharply, upset that his line of questioning had been interrupted by the rude intrusion.

The man gently smacked his own forehead in feigned regret. "My apologies, Sergeant. I'm Elwood." Then he added, "CIA."

"Odd," Flint said. "Usually it's the NSA that has a stake in our operations."

Elwood shrugged. "CIA, NSA – pick a three-letter agency. They're all signing my paycheck. In the end, it's just your tax dollars at work."

Whereas Flint had been drifting off in thought before, he was now consumed with Elwood and his sudden appearance in the meeting. Once again, he looked at Hawk who was intently playing with the handle on his coffee mug, tracing its contour with his index finger.

"What do you want?" Flint asked pointedly. His patience drained quickly from his control.

Elwood smiled contritely. "Eager is probably not something you want to be," he admonished. "Not when you're part of the package."

Duke became upset. "What does the CIA want with Flint?"

"Just a few details," Elwood said. "He'll be free to go after a debriefing with our agency."

"What else?" Flint prompted.

Elwood took a sip of his coffee and gave an agreeable nod of his head. "Doctor Suarez, of course."

Flint should have known, but it still hit his mind broadside. "What's your interest in her?"

Elwood ticked off the points on his fingers. "Let's see – time travel, weapons transport, oh, and that little thing about knowing the future." He smiled in mocked innocence. "We'd like to know what she knows."

"You're wasting your time," Flint said. "She won't tell you a damned thing." The words escaped his mouth with an unintentional air of pride.

"Well," Elwood said patronizingly, "we ask questions without those nasty rules to hold us back. When I want an answer, I get an answer, and I don't lose sleep over how I get it."

Duke's posture tightened. "That information was strictly confined to this room. Exactly how did you and your three-letter agency find out about it?"

The government man sat back in his chair. "We make it our job to know these things, Sergeant. Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to maintain our mystique so well."

Hawk was still transfixed on the table's surface, letting the conversation unfold between the others in the conference room without so much as a grunt or a nod. Flint's attention kept flitting back and forth between Elwood and the general.

"Gentlemen," Elwood continued, addressing Flint and Duke, "this is a done deal. The only reason I'm in here is that I was ordered to be courteous to the nation's golden children. I guess it pays to have fans in Washington. Otherwise, I would just go do my job and not give a damn how upset it made you."

Scarlett responded for the first time. "I don't think she's in a position to be moved. She was seriously wounded."

"We have our own doctors," Elwood said. "I assure you, she'll receive the utmost care."

The words were eerie to Flint. He could only imagine the doctors employed by the most secretive agency in the country and quite possibly the world. The CIA called the shots when it wanted, and there were few entities that could overrule it. Even though the Joes were separated from traditional ranks of military operations, they were still subject to the commands of the government. The CIA was one of the few entities that might even overrule the government because it felt it to be in its best interest.

"Care, my ass," Leatherneck groused. "You're going to dissect her like a bug."

Elwood said nothing. His silence was more aggravating than if he had fought back with the marine.

Scarlett was not about to let it go. She appealed to a higher power. "General," she said.

Finally, Hawk looked up from his coffee cup. "The Joint Chiefs have given direct orders on this matter, people." He looked at Elwood. "Mr. Elwood takes custody of Doctor Suarez as of this moment."

Elwood smiled. "Thank you, General."

"Don't thank me," Hawk said icily. "I'm under orders. It doesn't mean I like you."

"Few people do," Elwood said. "Now," he said, standing, "if you'll excuse me, I have a prisoner to transport."

He closed the folder and tucked it under his arm again. His coffee cup was empty. He carelessly took it from the table and carried it low. They watched him walk out the door, following his progress through the glass that lined the hallway until he was out of sight.

"General," Scarlett said again, "you can't let him take her."

Hawk's frustration overflowed. His voice was stern. "And what do you suggest I do, Sergeant? We all have bosses, and my boss says she goes with Elwood. He's taking her into custody, and there's nothing any of us can do about that."

"With all due respect, General," Scarlett argued, "she saved this command. For all we know, she saved us from a lot of things that would have turned out very bad had they gone the other way. And we're going to repay her by letting someone like that make her a science project?"

"The discussion is closed," Hawk said to all in the conference room. "Flint, you're ordered to debrief with Elwood's people when requested. Don't give them a hard time. It will only make it worse."

Before anyone could make further comment, Hawk dismissed them. He exited the room quickly and returned to his office off the main situation room.

They sat at the table, looking at one another in disbelief. Time, the very thing that Suarez had come to give them, was running quickly vanishing. Flint found himself truly believing what she had come to do was true. He had watched a man dissolve into non-existence before his very eyes. Flint's only consolation was that Scarlett and Leatherneck had seen it. It was not something of his imagination. They had seen things that could only be explained by the doctor's explanation. She had been telling them the truth, and her intentions had been right.

Flint rose from his chair and turned to leave the room. He had no idea where he was going, but he knew he could not just sit back idly while Nancy Suarez was made a lab rat.

"Flint," Scarlett called.

He stopped and turned to her. "I don't want to hear it, Shana. They're not taking her."

"Go against Hawk's orders, and you'll be pushing pencils for the rest of your career."

Duke chimed in on the warning. "That's if you have any career left."

Flint was surprised to hear Leatherneck speak in his defense.

"Since when did all of you start rolling over and dying so easy?" Leatherneck challenged, picking off the butterfly bandage and tossing it on the floor.

"I'm all for her staying out of Elwood's hands," Scarlett explained, "but there's not much to be done. They're going to take her because that's what they want. You don't tell the CIA it can't have something or someone."

"Then I'd say it's about time," Leatherneck said. "And besides, I just don't like that little weasel."

Scarlett looked at Leatherneck. "Neither do I, but we don't have a whole lot of options."

"I don't have time for this," Flint said. "I at least want to see her before that vulture takes her."

Leatherneck stood from the table. "I think I'll join you."

He met up with Flint at the door. They entered the hallway. The door to the conference room opened behind them. Scarlett stepped out into hall and fell in step with them.

She looked at them and shrugged. "Hell, we've been this far. May as well see it through to the end."

He saw the look in her eyes that told him she understood his plight. What was happening was not fair. Though she felt nothing could be done, she would be there for her friends, her comrades. Flint nodded at her with approval and appreciation.

They left the command center and stepped out into the waning hours of the afternoon. The sun was losing its intensity in the beginning of twilight hours. Activity on the base compound was slowing as night crews prepared to take over the duties of the day shift. International operations were a twenty-four hour affair. Two transport trucks meandered down the road to the east, loaded with fresh supplies.

Leatherneck put his cap on, effectively shading the wound on his forehead. Flint did not bother with his beret. In that moment, he shunned all that he had dedicated his life to and fought for, for it had betrayed his innermost sense of loyalty and righteousness. He realized he was an integral part of the machine that did such things as spirit away a woman who had done nothing wrong and now faced being the subject of experimentation and interrogation for whatever remained of her life. If he had had the chance, he would have removed his uniform and traded it in for civilian duds as a final statement of defiance.

They entered the hospital and took the elevator to the fourth floor where Suarez was recuperating. Allison was on the same floor, recovering hour by hour from her own sacrifice. When the trio rounded the corner, they found Doc at the nurse's station, reading over a chart. He looked up at them, greeting them with a nod.

"Flint," he said quietly.

Flint looked to the right and saw Suarez laying in one of the rooms. She was sleeping or at least resting soundly. He could see the lump of a bandage under her hospital gown. Bags of fluid were suspended over the bed, sustaining her life for the moment.

"How is she doing?" Flint asked, studying the floor's newest patient.

"All things considered, not bad. The bullet missed her lung, clipped a bone, but nothing catastrophic. Barring complications, she should make a full recovery."

"Can I see her?"

"She's in and out, in a lot of pain. They just gave her morphine, so I don't know what you'll get from her."

Flint was not sure he wanted her to be awake at all. He did not want to face her, knowing what was coming.

"Thanks," he said to Doc.

The room was quiet, all but the sound of the constant hiss of oxygen from a port in the wall. It was pushed through a line to the cannula that fed it into Suarez's nose. She was resting quietly. The twitch of her eyelids told him she was not sleeping soundly, just barely below the fully conscious level.

He approached the bed and sat down on the stool. For the first time, he noticed her hands were cuffed to the bed. Doc walked in and joined him at the bedside vigil. He saw Flint take notice of the restraints.

"Not my doing," Doc said quietly in his own defense.

Flint did not look up at him. "Elwood?"

"Is that his name?"

"So he says." Flint fell silent again, studying Suarez, regretting he was seeing another victim of the war against Cobra.

"I'll be back," Doc said quietly. He left the room without another word.

Flint reached through the steel rails of the bed where her hands were shackled. He tentatively took hold of her fingers. They were slender yet strong. He wondered how much she had seen in her lifetime. She was an enigma to him. He had learned so much from her yet raised more questions. He found it ironic how just days before he had pinned her to a wall in anger. Now, he looked at her with regret.

Her eyes fluttered open, desperately trying to focus. When she succeeded, she saw Flint sitting at her side. Her usual in-control demeanor was gone, replaced by that of a little girl caught in a situation in which there was no escape. She fought to control her fear and emotions.

"Should have let me die," she said in a thick voice.

He shook his head. "I couldn't," he said in a whisper. "I'm sorry."

"Wasn't supposed to be this way," she said, closing her eyes again. Her breathing was labored and quick, a combination of pain, medication and the result of Doc's surgical excursion into her shoulder wound. Most of all, she was trying to control her fear.

There was a commotion in the hall. Flint heard Leatherneck's voice become loud, the result of some sort of altercation. Then he heard Elwood's voice telling the marine to get out of the way.

Suarez heard it, too. She opened her eyes again and looked at Flint. "You know what you have to do," she breathed.

In an instant, he knew what she was asking. "I can't," he said, denying her.

"You did it before. You can do it again."

"No," he said, glancing furtively into the hall again.

Her hand tightened around his. "I can't go through this, Flint. They'll make me talk, and you know that's something I can't allow. I need you to help me." She was desperate. "Please, Flint. They can't know the future."

A scuffle broke out in the hall. It ended abruptly with the cocking of weapons that brought total silence from the participants. The sound flashed through Flint like cold lightning. He looked out into the hall again and saw an armed contingent standing behind Elwood, weapons raised.

"That about handles the fisticuffs," he heard Elwood say. He presumed it was to Leatherneck and Scarlett.

Elwood stepped into the room and stood at the foot of Suarez's bed. "About time you and I take a trip, little lady," he said.

Two of the armed guards in the hall stepped into the doorway of the room.

"Mr. Faireborn, if you'll just step away, we'll get this show on the road."

"She doesn't want to go with you," Flint said, feeling her fingers tighten even more around his.

"She doesn't have a choice," Elwood said, not backing down to Flint's admonishment. He turned to the guards. "Sergeant, take Warrant Officer Faireborn down the hall."

The sergeant moved forward and placed a strong hand around Flint's upper arm, pulling him upward off the stool. The feel of being forced triggered rage in him that exploded in a roundhouse punch that landed squarely on the sergeant's jaw. Elwood was immediately calling for backup from the other guards, who poured into the room and subdued Flint on the floor. He felt a knee slam down squarely in the center of his back as his arm was pulled sharply up his back, trapping him. The guard's knee ground sharply into his back, keeping him from fighting back and giving Suarez a chance.

"Get him out of here!" Elwood hollered.

Flint scrambled to his feet when the guard released his hold. The guard misinterpreted the move and rewarded him with a violent push backward against the wall. Leatherneck and Scarlett were held at bay in the hall, unable to come to the aid of their comrade. Flint held his ground, not willing to leave the room.

Suarez's collection of medical equipment was being quickly dismantled from the hooks above the bed. Two technicians, not of the Joe staff, arrived with portable monitoring equipment. They transferred her readings to their watchful eye as Elwood stood to the side, observing the whole affair with annoying satisfaction that grated to Flint's core. Suarez did not say a word, but her eyes pleaded with Flint in desperate flashes of fear and anger. She was a helpless hostage of the secret part of the government, on her way to a fate that was wrong, one she had never planned.

She was in no position to put up a fight with them. She was weak and in pain. Her bravado was gone. There were no snappy comebacks for Elwood or the guards taking her into custody. Flint saw the tiny quiver of fear in her chin, the quick blinking of her eyes as she processed what was happening to her, knowing there was nothing she could do to stop it, at a loss for knowing her future.

"You can't do this," Flint said to Elwood again.

Elwood seemed to soften a bit in his smugness. He looked at Flint like a man who gave him credit for knowing how the game was played.

"It's out of my hands," he said plainly. "I'm just the delivery man."

"That must make you feel really good."

"Depends on who I'm pissing off at the moment."

The transport team worked quickly. A gurney was wheeled into the room and brought to the side of the bed. In one smooth motion, Suarez was dragged onto it. She tried to stifle a yelp of pain but failed.

"Easy with the merchandise," Elwood warned, annoyed.

Suarez was covered with a blanket and strapped on to the gurney. They began wheeling her out of the room. Flint lurched forward in one final attempt to stop them but was met with a hard shove to his chest with the length of an assault rifle.

Elwood stepped over to Flint and stood in front of him. "It's over, Flint. Don't make this harder for her than it has to be. It's not going to endear either one of you to what's coming."

Flint stared him down, his eyes drilling through the government man like daggers. His struggled to control his rage as Elwood blocked his way to the door.

"This isn't over," Flint said low.

Elwood was not fazed. "Whatever you say, Chief," he said with a flip of his head.

Suarez was wheeled out of sight. Elwood turned to check the progress of the transport team. When he saw they were gone, he nodded to the trooper holding Flint at bay.

"Let him go," he ordered.

The guard carefully backed away from Flint, cautious and prepared to stop him once more if needed. Elwood moved to the door, too.

"See you around, Flint," he said, as if it were a warning. "Oh, and by the way," he said like an afterthought, "you're confined to this base until I come calling for you. Don't try to leave."

The procession down the hall was guarded. Flint watched as Elwood finally turned his back on the trio of Joes in the hall and joined up with the gurney as it was brought to the elevator. The medical staff for the floor watched, as well, mouths agape at the whole scene. It was then Flint realized they had a vested stake in the entire incident. They had come to know Suarez and like her. She had been a part of their team, just as Scarlett and Leatherneck were a part of his. They felt helpless to save someone they knew, and it was not because of a medical malady. It was something they had no cure for, no remedy in a bottle or procedure.

Elwood gave one last glance back at Flint as the gurney was loaded on to the elevator. Suarez was swallowed up and was gone from sight. Soon, Elwood joined her. Then they were gone.

Flint stood there, shocked and angry. He heard tiny sniffles of the staff from beyond the nurse's station. They had all been witness to the unthinkable. An outside source had intervened with one of the Joe's own. At least to these people, she belonged, Flint conceded. She had done her part to save Allison's life and countless others. While Flint did not feel personal gratitude for her efforts, the medical staff obviously did. Violence had directly invaded their field of operations and had touched someone they knew.

Scarlett made her way to Flint's side. "What do we do?" she asked quietly.

Flint had no idea, but he was not willing to give up so easily. "Nothing . . . for now," he vowed.

Leatherneck shared his sentiment. "For now," he reiterated and clapped Flint on the shoulder.

Flint turned around, heading for Allison's room. He looked inside and found that she had been asleep for the entire ordeal. He was silently grateful that she had not had to see it at all. All he wanted was for her to rest and recover, not be riled with anxiety by witnessing Elwood's spiriting Suarez away to God knew where.

Just as he was about to enter her room, Joanne, Allison's day nurse, stopped him.

"Sir?" she said quietly.

Flint could see she had been one of the ones who had been crying. "Yeah?" he asked gently.

She led Flint behind the station. She reached under the counter and pulled out a small cardboard box from the shelf and presented it to Flint.

"These are Doctor Suarez's personal affects. I don't know what to do with them." She struggled with the last words.

He accepted the box, giving her a sympathetic nod. "Thank you," he said quietly, regretting he could not stop Elwood all the more. "I'll take care of it."

Her face fell apart as he took the box from her. He put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly.

There was nothing he could say that would have comforted them all in that moment. They were looking to him for words of encouragement, but there were none. He was powerless to take the fight to the ones who had absconded with Suarez. There was no way he could go after Elwood with guns blazing, no matter how much he wanted.

His only solace came when he entered Allison's room and sat down next to her. He reached out and took her hand in his, feeling its blessed warmth as he cradled it in his. She was sleeping soundly, her color better than it had been. She was improving, breathing on her own, her body healing at its own pace. She no longer looked so deathly weak, though he knew the road ahead was still long and barely traveled. She was alive. That was the only thing he could take comfort in at the moment. She would be safe. The likes of Elwood would have no interest in her. She knew nothing of value. Allison had not been privy to the events of the last few days. She had only been a part of the initial birth of it all.

Allison stirred but remained asleep. He sat back in the chair. The box on the floor caught his eye. He stared down at the only remnants of Nancy Suarez that remained in his possession. He rifled through the contents. A watch, earrings, a pack of cigarettes – then his hand closed around the lighter. He pulled it out and looked at it in the dim light of the room. Parts of the worn surface still glinted up at him. He turned it over in his palm, his mind turning its gears in the same manner. A slight tremor played on his fingers as he grasped the inner strike mechanism and the housing and pulled. His heart pounded as he disassembled it.

The tiny blue lights inside were like a beacon of hope as he held the two parts in his hands. Flint did not know what the device could do, but he was thoroughly convinced that if it could give Suarez a chance, she had certainly earned it.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

Flint grasped the lighter in his pocket, curling his fingers securely around it as he walked. Beneath it was the jangle of the earrings and the solid bulge of the cigarettes and watch. He felt as though he was carrying something so precious and priceless. He was afraid of being stopped and searched. His pace was quick down the hall. Scarlett and Leatherneck had tried to follow him, but he refused their help. They had done enough. Where he was going was dangerous and would probably cost him his career. Unemployment seemed more palatable than knowing for the rest of his life that he had doomed Suarez to the experimental whims of the nation's top spy agency. They knew their business well, and even Suarez would not be able to resist their efforts forever. They would make her talk, make her reveal things that were not ready to be revealed.

He took the stairs instead of the elevator. Already, he could hear the chop of rotor blades close to the hospital. Suarez was, no doubt, being loaded on to one. He took the steps two at a time until he was at the bottom. He tore through the door leading to the landing zone only to see the choppers taking off, lifting high into the air, one after another. They turned and made formation in the sky, pulling away from the Joe compound and picking up speed.

Flint began running for the airfield. He could at least chase them and see where they were going. He saw a Dragonfly in the distance, ready to go. A maintenance man was nearby, packing up tools. He would soon tether the helicopter to the ground when he was done, but Flint had other plans.

The hatch to the two-seat chopper was open. Flint vaulted into the cockpit and quickly closed the transparent shell over his head. The crewman appeared at the side of the craft, inquiring what was happening. The inquiry turned to demands as Flint kicked over the engines and the rotors began turning. He felt impatient as he waited for the oil pressure to rise to a sufficient level.

He saw the troopers coming toward him in the distance. His own people were giving an armed response to his actions. Theft of military aircraft was frowned upon, even though he felt justified in technically borrowing it for a good cause. The rotors were whipping faster and faster, but the helo was no where near ready to lift off the ground. The maintenance chief was pounding on the glass, repeatedly warning Flint to exit the vehicle. The troopers were gathering strength, joined by other responding units until they surrounded the chopper, weapons locked and loaded. They took aim at Flint, all of them serious in their intent.

A jeep rounded the corner of the hangar off to the right. He saw Duke's blonde head rise above the windshield. He stood up and held on to the frame as the jeep sped across the airfield, looking like a commander amid a battlefield. When the jeep came to a stop, he jumped down and walked up to the helo, bent over slightly as most when nearing rotors.

Flint saw the look in his eyes. Duke was not playing games. His patience had been thin from the start, and Flint was sure it had just vanished completely.

"Shut it down!" Duke yelled over the din of the chopper. He gave a sharp cutting gesture across his throat to make sure his intention was clear.

A quick inventory of the troopers told Flint the odds were stacked against him. All he had to do, he knew, was try to lift off and they would open fire. They were authorized and trained to do just that. They were the primary base protection, and it was their job to protect Joe assets, no matter who was threatening them.

Duke glared at him, arms at his sides and fists clenched. His jaw was set, brow furrowed against the wash from the rotors. Flint was fighting a losing battle. There was no doubt Duke would enforce an armed response if the chopper lifted off the ground in any way. That was policy.

Reluctantly, Flint shut down the engine. Its high-powered whine slowly reduced to a whispering whoosh as the blades lost propulsion. Flint sat in the cockpit until the blades had come to a halt. Duke waited, ordering the troopers to hold their positions. Flint reached into his pocket one more time, palming the lighter. His mind flashed to imaginary thoughts of what Elwood was going to do to Suarez. There had been fear in her eyes when she realized they were taking her. Weakness had reduced to a mere child at the mercy of those more able-bodied around her. She had asked Flint to help her, to release her from her impending hell. He had refused.

Flint reached for the lock on the hatch and opened it. Duke stepped forward until he was almost flush against the hull of the chopper. He looked up at Flint.

"Get out, Flint," he ordered. "Don't make these guys do their job," he said more quietly.

Flint surveyed the armed crowd around him and knew it was over. He released the buckle of the harness around his shoulders and flipped the straps to the side. He stood up and carefully exited the cockpit.

Duke turned to one of the troopers. "Give me your cuffs."

The trooper complied and tossed a silver set of bracelets. Duke caught them and took hold of Flint's arm. The cuffs were not too tight, but they were certainly a deterrent to escape. Flint was taken into custody by Duke and placed in the back of the jeep. The rest of the responding guard contingent was dismissed with one or two remaining to ensure the Dragonfly was secure.

Flint said nothing as the jeep made its way to the command center. Duke kept his eyes forward, and Flint knew it was more a matter of his loss of patience than a lack of things to say. Duke was second-in-command of the Joe team. He had earned his right to be angry when someone stepped out of line. He had run his military career by the book, for the most part. Even in the moments when he had strayed from the rigid standards of the organization, it had not been so far as to court prosecution. He was well-respected among his teammates for that very reason.

The jeep pulled to a stop outside the command center. Duke jumped out and helped Flint. Two guards approached.

"Take him to Interrogation," Duke ordered. "Unhook him once he's secure."

The troopers took custody of Flint and led him inside the command center to the interrogation room where Scarlett had first questioned Suarez. One of the troopers removed the cuffs. Then Flint was in the room alone. A red band rounded his wrists where the metal of the cuffs had dug into his skin. He rubbed at the marks, feeling the distortion in his skin. He had no idea how long he had been sitting there, but he got the feeling that he was on ice until those in command could be sure that Flint's ire had died down enough.

The door to the room opened. Duke entered and sat down in the chair on the other side of the table. Flint had no doubt there was an audience on the other side of the two-way mirror on the wall.

"Been a busy week so far," Duke said, settling back in the metal chair.

"Not as busy as it's about to get for her," Flint said.

"Doesn't excuse your actions," Duke said plainly. "No one is going to look favorably on you trying to steal a helo."

"I wasn't stealing," Flint argued. "I was doing what I thought was right. And since when did you become such a holy, by-the-book soldier?"

"Holy?"

"Sure," Flint said, feeling anger well. "You know what they'll do, and you're helping them."

Duke's face became hard. "She infiltrated an international security force."

"She saved our lives!" Flint said, just short of shouting.

"You don't even know who she is," Duke countered. "You took her at her word, and you have no way of knowing if she was telling the truth. What if she's batting for the b-team? Did you ever consider that?"

"You and I both know she's not. And if you want to get down to brass tacks, you weren't on the op. You don't know what went on in there."

"And suppose you tell the rest of the story about that? See, I don't buy that you gave us everything in the debriefing. I know you, Flint. You were holding back."

Flint was not about to give Duke the satisfaction of a slip in information. "It doesn't matter what went on. Right now, we need to help her."

Duke shook his head. "Not going to happen. As far as Uncle Sam is concerned, she's an infiltrator and subject to being held for questioning."

Finally, Flint's anger broke. "You really think Elwood is going to ask her nicely?

"It's out of our hands, Flint."

"No thanks to you! I could have at least followed them to where they took her."

"And for what? To mount a rescue mission? You don't get it. She's considered a POW. You're treading water in the treason end of the pool," Duke said. "And don't think the Joint Chiefs aren't paying attention to this. They're watching it like a soap opera. Tongues are wagging at the prospect of what she knows."

"Then cut me loose and let me help her!"

"You're not going anywhere," Duke said shortly. "Elwood already has you penciled in for your own session. Don't give him any more ammunition than he already has on you."

"And what about Elwood?" Flint challenged. "He blows in here like a wind and you just let him waltz out of here with Suarez with no questions."

"Because I knew we wouldn't get any answers if we asked."

Flint was in the mood to place blame where it belonged. "Hawk knew he was coming. The JCS obviously gave him some warning."

"Flint," Duke said, shaking his head, "it doesn't matter."

"It does matter!" Flint said loudly. "We're the good guys! We're supposed to protect the innocent, uphold the law."

"Black ops are above the law. You know that. Suarez was a part of one, and now she's subject to the consequences. So are you."

Flint clenched his hands in frustration and anger. He controlled the volume of his voice. "We sold her out, Duke. Try to convince yourself all you want that we didn't, but you know we did."

"Right now, my only concern is keeping your butt out of a sling."

"Speaking of that, how long do I get to stay in this hotel?"

"Provided you don't pull any more stunts, you're free to roam the base. Try anything cute, and I'll lock you up behind bars and let you rot there until someone comes calling for you."

Flint gave a humorless smile. "That's mighty big of you."

"Get out of here," Duke said with disdain. "Go see Allison, work out in the gym, clean jeep parts – I don't care. But stay on base and out of trouble until all this blows over."

"Is that an order from the 2IC?"

"No," Duke said firmly. "That's strong advice from a friend." He stood from the table. "Don't leave the base."

Flint watched as Duke opened the door and disappeared into the hallway. His heart still raced with stress and anger. Technically, he outranked Duke, but Duke had been given the position of second-in-command of the base. Flint was third, subjecting him to offhand ridicule by other officers that he was being led around by an NCO. What he did not tell Duke very often was that he respected the man's judgment. Duke, by far, deserved more than stripes on his arm. He deserved rank insignia on his collars for his dedication to the Joe cause. He was a true leader, one that Hawk recognized early on and rewarded. Leadership transcended rank in their world. Duke had been there since the beginning. He had earned his place.

All that made it easier to accept Duke's orders to stay out of trouble. It still cut like a knife that Flint had been told to stay put, but there were some things that were utterly out of anyone's control. Lately, it seemed that those things almost always related to Cobra and its habit of havoc it wreaked on the world. Innocent people were hurt. Some were killed. Others were victims of circumstance when they tried to intervene. Suarez was just one such person. Flint considered what she had done as he walked toward the base hospital again. She had given him every reason to distrust her and every reason to know for sure that she was there to help, not sabotage or hinder. It did not matter that Duke did not believe it, or that she had been less than forthcoming in the early stages of the saga. She had done her part, and she was slated to pay for her good deeds.

The fourth floor was quiet once more. The chaos of Elwood's surprise entrance had bled away into idle chatter and water cooler speculation. Flint felt the stares on him as he walked the floor toward Allison's room. The hospital staff was looking for answers. That job was best left to the man in charge of them, Doc. Doc would be able to tell them what they needed to know and have the words stick. If Flint tried, there would just be more questions, with the staff assuming he knew more than he did. In some respects, he supposed it was true. He had the firsthand account of events. However, there were some things that were never going to be public knowledge. That much he knew for sure.

He looked at Allison in the bed with new eyes. No longer did she look so invincible as she had been. She looked small and frail, damaged by a redirected bullet. Guilt seared through him as he recalled that he should have been the one to get hit. He thought about the scars that would now mar her body. They had all been hurt in one way or another in battles with Cobra, but this had been the most serious thus far. She would resent it, he knew. A weakness in her indestructible aura had been exposed. The vulnerabilities of her body had been pushed to the limit, to the point that her heart had stopped and she had died.

Now, she was alive. Lifeline had been in the right place at the right time to bring her back to them. Flint was able to reach out and touch her warm hand instead of saying any goodbyes to a casket draped in the flag of the United States of America. As he did so, her eyes fluttered open, blinking a few times before finally settling on him.

"Flint?" she asked, weak and raspy.

"Hey," he said, sitting down in the chair. "How you doing?"

"I hurt," Allison said, licking her dry lips.

He reached picked up her hand and held it between his. "I know."

Always to the point, she asked, "How'd the mission go?"

He was surprised she had remembered.

"Successful," he said, trying to keep the answers simple so as not to overload her in her weakened condition.

Allison knew him too well. "But?" she asked, knowing there was more.

He hesitated. "But, there's a problem."

With that, he began a brief synopsis of events, cognizant of the fact that it was probably classified to the point that she would be excluded from those in the know. When he finished, he waited for her to be angry that she had been made the victim of circumstance.

"So now," he said, in conclusion, "I'm waiting to be grilled by Elwood and his minions."

To his surprise, she was perplexed more than upset at the developments.

"If the conference room was sealed, and you guys were the only ones who knew," she said, "how did Elwood find out what was going on?"

"It's been on my mind, too," he admitted, impressed by her presence of mind considering how she looked and felt.

"Have Mainframe sweep it," she said decisively.

Flint smiled. "I don't think I'm in a position to give orders at the moment."

Allison closed her eyes to a twinge of pain. "If you don't, you'll have bigger problems."

Flint looked up at the monitors above the bed. Her heart rate began to spike, and her eyes closed. He heard a tiny suppressed grunt sound in her chest.

"Let me get Doc," he said, trying to mask his anxiety.

She held his hand fast. "No." Her breathing was heavier. "It'll pass."

And it did. Slowly, she recovered her composure. Her vitals dropped back to a more normal rate, and she began to relax.

"Just a twinge," she said. Then she looked at him. "You have to sweep that room," she said emphatically. "Find out who's been in there lately."

"I will," he promised. "In the meantime, you try to get some rest. The team needs you."

She gave half a smile. "At least someone does."

"Well," he said, smiling, himself, "some of us more than others."

He leaned in and kissed her tenderly, not caring who might see. He had nearly lost her and had decided he would not waste another moment or another opportunity to let her know how he felt. Flint reluctantly left her when she closed her eyes and began falling back asleep.

He made his way back to the command center, enduring stares and curious looks from the guard staff there. A couple of them eyed him suspiciously, almost daring him to try something in their presence. He gave them no satisfaction, making a straight line for Mainframe's office. Once there, he knocked on the door.

"Door's open," Mainframe called, his voice muffled from behind the heavy oak.

Flint entered and immediately sat down in the chair across the desk from the Joe technical wizard. He looked around the room, expecting chaos of paperwork and computer parts. Flint was surprised to see that Mainframe was fastidiously neat in his work. Everything had a place. Works in progress were tidy and orderly.

Mainframe sat back in his chair. "Wow," he said. "They cut you loose?"

"For the most part," Flint said. "I need a favor. Two, actually," he said, correcting himself.

"Flint, my hands are tied right now if you want the impossible."

"I want the conference room swept for bugs."

Mainframe shrugged. "We sweep once a week. It was already done on Monday."

"And?"

"And nothing. Clean as a whistle."

"Sweep it again," Flint said.

Mainframe shook his head. "No problem," he said. "I'll do it myself in a few minutes if you want. What's the second favor?"

"I want you to find out who Elwood is."

Mainframe laughed out loud. "The guy's a spook, Flint. They don't exactly publish his bio for public consumption."

Flint felt no humor. "We're not the public. I want to know all available information about him. Call in some markers if you have to."

"You don't understand," Mainframe said, pleading. "He doesn't exist."

"And how would you know that?"

Mainframe hesitated with a guilty appearance. "Because I looked."

"All on your own?"

The tech sighed. "When he blew into that conference room, I couldn't help myself. It's not like I haven't run checks on people before."

Flint knew better. "This was no ordinary check," he said, knowingly.

"No," Mainframe admitted. "I knew when I started that the network returns would be negative. They're not going to publish an agent's file online."

"Who did you ask?"

"A friend of mine at the Pentagon. She's got her fingers in several programs and has more access than most. I'm waiting on a call back from her."

Flint smiled at Mainframe's efforts. "Hawk know?"

"You kidding? He'd have my head on a platter if he knew I went outside of channels without his permission."

"Welcome to the bad boys club," Flint quipped.

"Look, you have to keep this under your beret, Flint. I'm not kidding."

Flint held up his hands in surrender. "Hey, like Sergeant Schultz, I know nossing," he said, mimicking the rotund television camp guard.

"In the meantime," Mainframe said, saving a file on his computer, "let's go sweep the room and see what we can find. I doubt there's anything there."

He reached down to the drawer of his desk and pulled it open. After a brief rummaging session, he brought out a small black box with a wand attached by a cord.

"Just in case," Mainframe added, "keep the conversation neutral if any at all. If you're right, we don't want to tip off whoever may be listening."

Flint followed him to the conference room. Once there, Mainframe began systematically sweeping the wand over the room, looking for red lights that would indicate a hit. He checked electrical outlets, phone jacks, network jacks and all the furniture with negative results.

The whiteboard was clean, as were the plasma screens. He looked at Flint in an "I told you so" manner that was annoying. Still, Flint encouraged the search to continue.

Mainframe finished the sweep of the room and returned to where Flint was standing. He shook his head to indicate everything was clean.

Flint's head dropped backward in frustration. He looked up at the ceiling, trying to come up with a new scenario. The lights were painful in his eyes. Florescent lighting always gave him a headache. He routinely worked in his office by the mellow light of a small banker's lamp for that reason.

His eyes focused on the elongated shades of the lights suspended over the conference table. He pointed upward when he realized Mainframe had not swept there.

The tech climbed on to the conference table and aimed the wand at the shades, sweeping over them in careful thoroughness. The first shade proved negative. The second lit up the detector in bright red lights.

Flint's excitement rose. There was a bug. He watched as Mainframe carefully felt along the horizontal light shade. His hand stopped when he felt something that should not have been there. With surgical precision, he picked up the device and brought it down for Flint to view, setting it in the center of the conference room table. Then he motioned for Flint to follow him into the hall. Once the door was closed, he spoke.

"You were right, Flint," Mainframe said, sounding out of breath in his exhilaration.

"What is that thing?"

"Definitely a transmitter. But," he said, "we have a bigger problem."

Flint remembered Jaye's prophetic words in the ICU. He could not suppress an ironic smile. "Don't we always?"

"You don't understand," Mainframe said. "That's pure Cobra tech in there."

Flint felt the shock of the information. "You sure?"

"I know the line we use. We, as in the Pentagon, three-letter agencies, etcetera – the good guys. That," he said pointing into the room, "is a pure, unadulterated snake toy."

"How'd it get there?"

Mainframe walked a few steps away from Flint and called out to the sergeant on duty. "Sergeant, anyone been in there lately who shouldn't have been?"

The guard stepped out from behind the desk. He was large, well-suited for his job. "There was some unscheduled maintenance a few days ago," he reported. "A crew had to replace some light tubes."

"Did you check their credentials?" Flint asked, joining up with them.

"Yes, sir," the sergeant answered. "All their paperwork was in order."

"I'll pull that when I get back to my office," Mainframe said to Flint. "Sergeant," he said, addressing the guard once more, "I want that room secured. No one goes in or out until further notice. Understood?"

"You got it," the sergeant said in acknowledgement.

Flint followed Mainframe's hurried steps down the hall back to the office. Once inside, he dialed Hawk's office line and requested an immediate meeting. While he waited for the general, he began running diagnostics on the communications array of the base, looking for the transmission signal for the device.

"The reception base has to be relatively close," Mainframe said, working the computer system. "Those devices are short-range."

"Which means whoever was listening had to be inside the perimeter to get a signal."

"Right. And," he added, "I just swept in there four days ago, including the lights. That bug is recent, probably since the attack at the mountain station."

There was a knock on the doorframe. Hawk stood tensely before them, stress on his face. "This better be good," he said, looking directly at Flint.

Flint did not waiver. "The conference room was rigged with a Cobra bug. They've been listening in on everything we've said in the last few days."

"Perfect," Hawk said, looking grim and angry all at the same time. He looked at Flint directly and crossed his arms across his chest. "This day just keeps getting better and better."

Mainframe and Flint looked at each other curiously.

"Sir?" Mainframe queried carefully.

Hawk took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "The transport carrying Suarez is missing. They never made it to the new location."


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15 

The response from the central command area was swift. Hawk put everyone into play in an effort to track where Elwood's entourage had gone once it left the base. The obvious choice of tool in the investigation was air traffic control data.

"No dice," Mainframe reported to Flint. "I've reviewed all the data. Either they were jamming when they got airborne, or they're using spook gadgets to hide their signature. I find it hard to believe they were trimming treetops the entire way with the terrain around here."

Flint bent over and looked at the playback of the radar data. Mainframe showed him the sequence. Elwood's helicopter, designated Papa One-Two-Four, lifted off at around nineteen hundred hours, according to the security videos, but never registered on radar. It was a phantom aircraft, just like the ones that had hit the mountain in the initial attack.

He straightened again, frustrated. "What else can we use?"

Mainframe sat back in his high backed chair. He thought for a moment. "Well, we could send a recon unit out to scout for a trail of breadcrumbs."

"_Real_ options," Flint groused.

Finally, the tech's patience broke. "Look, I don't have a lot to go on here. I don't even know who the bad guys are right now."

Flint arched his back, trying to relieve tension. Several pops ran up his spine as it realigned. He felt the grab of one muscle release, easing his stress.

"You're right," he admitted. "Maybe we need to quit assuming and figure out what we're up against first."

"Should I get a pencil and paper?" Mainframe asked, half serious.

Flint let it slide. "All right, we have Elwood, who doesn't exist because no good spy would be caught with his file folders hanging out."

"Right, and we have a Cobra bug, which sorely suggests he was playing both sides."

"Which doesn't mean anything when you come right down to it," Flint added, "because any number of agencies on our side would use whatever they thought was the most effective piece of equipment for the job."

Mainframe was getting into the game. "Enter the Joint Chiefs who sanction his presence here and his taking Suarez into custody."

"But if they didn't know he was a switch-hitter, they'd think he was a good guy."

A curious thought occurred to Flint. "What happens when they don't get the package they expect?"

"They'd keep it quiet," Mainframe said. "She's a confidential delivery as it is. If she doesn't arrive, they're not going to admit to it publicly, let alone have it filter through channels that they let someone like Suarez slip through their fingers."

Flint folded his arms across his chest. "So, if you had to guess, how much you think they'd be willing to pay to get her back?"

"From what I know, the contract wouldn't be for her," Mainframe said. "It would be on Elwood, if he's one of their own. Agencies don't kiss and tell. Elwood's probably got a long story for whoever will listen for the right price."

Flint agreed with the assessment. "And Cobra's a high bidder."

"Only Uncle Sam has a bigger wallet at this point."

Flint's head ached. He rubbed at his right temple, trying to quell a growing headache that seemed to have no intention of slowing. He inwardly cursed himself for not safeguarding Suarez more. An even deeper part of him whispered quiet regrets that he had not done as she had asked. His conscience was clear to some degree until he at inevitably confirmed that she had been made an experiment, probed for answers to questions she could not answer. It would be bad enough if his own government had her, but it would be even more horrendous if Cobra had custody.

"Any sources in Washington you can pull?" Flint asked, pushing away images of interrogation techniques Cobra frequently employed.

"I have people doing some checking. Nothing back from them so far, though."

"Keep me informed," Flint said. He began to turn when Mainframe stopped him.

"Flint," the tech said tentatively. "I think you should know I haven't exactly been green-lighted to help you with this. I mean, I know it seems like everyone is looking for Elwood, but it's not what you think. The JCS lost its package, and that's about all they care about at the moment. You just happen to have the same goal for the moment, and Suarez ain't it."

"Anyone tell you not to help me?"

"I was, well, _advised_ to not put forth my best foot for you."

"Dare I ask by whom?"

Mainframe grimaced. "Probably not a wise idea. Look, let me do what I can without kicking up any dust."

Flint gave Mainframe a gentle punch in the shoulder. "I appreciate it."

The command center was a collection of quiet murmurs and the sound of keyboard keys being tapped as operators sifted through resources, trying to cull any information on Elwood and his whereabouts. Flint joined in the effort, assuming his place at an open workstation. He had never been that interested in the center's abundant resources of information except when it pertained to the mission at hand. Even then, he only concerned himself with the information he needed to know, not where it had come from or who had obtained it. Now, he was desperately wanting to know how it was done, who gave the tips and facts that were combined into the large, overall picture of a mission objective.

He sensed Mainframe looking over his shoulder as he worked.

"Anything I can help you find, Flint?"

Flint kept working, though he really had no idea where he was going. "You said they'd put a contract out on Elwood if he was one of their own. How do we find out if they've done that?"

Mainframe gave a chuckle. "You're not going to find it on there. It's not like it's a website."

Flint's anger popped to the surface. "Then how to do we find it?" he said loudly, frustrated, causing heads in the command center to turn in his direction. He did not care.

"It takes a few phone calls, some street contacts," Mainframe explained softly. "I can make those calls, but it's going to take time."

"Do it," Flint said firmly.

Mainframe gave Flint a gentle tap in on the shoulder. "Why don't you go get some sleep? I'll page you when I have something. You're not going to be in a position to do anything if you're dead on your feet."

It was good advice, and Flint was willing to follow it. He was exhausted. His skin prickled with fatigue.

"Keep me informed," he said.

He knew Mainframe had meant that Flint should return to quarters and get some rack time, but the hospital was Flint's destination. He found himself sitting at Jaye's bedside, watching her sleep. He sat close to her, taking her hand in his and resting his head on the bed. He looked up at her, once again memorizing her features. Her hand was warm in his, a perfect fit, just as she had been to him.

He had literally dared her to come in for a final drink on that night. The first kiss was more of an accident than anything. They had all been out for a celebration beer. The team had been victorious on all accounts in thwarting yet another Cobra plot to harm civilians. They had put a major dent in its operations. It had been a long mission, one they all celebrated heavily upon their return to American soil, the team intact with no injuries. Beer had flowed quite freely. Flint and Allison had been the most sober to drive the rest to their off-base housing. One by one, she emptied the car of teammates until it was just the two of them.

He had poured a shot of Tullamore Dew for her and himself. He carefully neared her, afraid he would put her on the defensive. She stood her ground, though, raising her glass and aiming it at his as his eyes bore into hers.

"To victory," he said huskily, his voice failing to find a strong timbre. His legs felt weak.

She gently touched glasses with him, downing the shot in one take. He did the same, feeling the smooth burn of the drink as it coursed down his insides. Before he knew it, they were so close that he could feel the heat of her body on his bare forearms. All the feelings for each other, the mutual attraction that they had denied for so long disintegrated into a graze of the lips. It turned into the most passionate kiss he had ever known in his life. The taste of whiskey on her tongue mingled with his as they devoured one another.

He held her in his arms, daring to touch her in the most intimate places. She did the same, willingly following him to the bedroom. She was infinitely woman to him, a sharp contrast to the military operative she was to the rest of the team. Her cotton caftan was casual and soft. Allison was touchable, vulnerable when she trusted someone. Flint made every effort to ensure he did not betray that trust.

The wooden floors creaked as they moved in unison across to the bed. All the while, the battle raged in his head over what they were doing. He knew he should have stopped it, but she was quenching a thirst in him that he had felt so long. She was the one who could get to the very core of him, who knew he had vulnerabilities, just like she did. Allison was the one who had kept his thoughts sailing long after the day was done.

It was a night indelibly etched in his memory. They made love until they had no more energy and fell asleep. He yearned for the feeling of her next to him on that morning. The feel of cotton sheets and blankets on bare skin on that cool fall morning were ecstasy as he held her, her body a perfect fit to his own. She felt natural to him, as though he had waited for that moment all his life. He could honestly say he had not looked at another woman since meeting her. Allison had taken his complete attention. He lusted, yearned, and wondered about her all the time. He would purposely change the duty rotation just to be near her. It was only after that night that she objected to the practice. She had called it off for good reason. It would have spiraled out of control and would have hurt both of them and their careers.

It did not mean his feelings for her had turned off as quickly as the relationship had ended. In truth, he was uncontrollably under her spell. She was very good at fending him off in their daily work encounters, but tongues wagged nonetheless. Bill had told Flint at one point that the longing was so apparent that the only thing missing were flashing lights pointing down on the two of them. If Bill knew, then Duke and Hawk were certainly aware. It only enhanced the frustration Flint felt. Obstacles continued to block his one desire to be with Allison, without conditions and rules and regulations. It had been a one-night stand that he simply could not let go, no matter how hard he tried.

He felt himself drifting off to sleep at the side of the hospital bed, unwilling to stop it. He was right where he wanted to be – with her. The occasional sound would wake him, though not fully. Nurses would enter, doing their jobs. The normal operations of the hospital continued without regard of his fatigue. Still, he managed to find solid moments of sleep where nothing could have awakened him. Flint did not care if he snored, which Allison told him he did, but that it was nothing too bad.

When he finally awoke, he found the slightest movement brought sharp pain to his back. He had been hunched over the bed so long that muscles had seized. He gingerly began straightening, testing each fiber before fully extending his back to a sitting position. Allison was still asleep, and her hand was still securely in his. He gently extricated his hand from hers, stretching his arms above his head. He had slept for almost six hours. It was enough to rejuvenate him.

"You snore."

Flint whirled around, finding the source of the quiet, deep voice. Hawk sat in the corner, hidden by the shadows in the room.

"How long have you been there?" Flint asked, his heart thumping with surprise.

"Long enough," Hawk said. "How's the back?"

Flint smiled. "There's something to be said for being horizontal when you sleep."

Hawk remained in the shadows, content to keep the conversation quiet and his eyes hidden in the darkness. "I hear you put some ears to the ground to find Suarez."

Reluctantly, Flint admitted he had. "Yeah, I did. Is there a problem?"

"Not with me, no. But you know that old Chinese proverb – be careful what you wish for. In this case, you may get more than you wanted."

"Are you ordering me to back off?"

"That's your call," Hawk said quietly. Flint could see the whites of the general's eyes reveal themselves in the darkness as his focus shifted to Allison. "Just remember it doesn't involve only you."

Flint knew what Hawk meant. Risks were a part of their business. "She'd do the same if she were in my position," he said, taking his own turn to look at her sleeping form.

"But she's not. She's laying there with a hole in her back."

Flint wanted to shout as his anger grew. He felt as though Hawk were aiming the comment at him. "What's your point?" he said, controlling his voice.

The whites disappeared again in the shadows as Hawk focused on him again. "Taking risks is a part of our job. Sometimes, there's a price to be paid for doing that."

"So?"

Hawk was direct. "Is Suarez worth it?"

"I believe she is, yes," Flint avowed.

"Must have been one hell of an extracurricular event while you were out in the field with her to make her so worthwhile."

Flint did not like where Hawk was going. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means we've been friends a long time. I know you, Flint. I know you were holding back in that briefing, just like Duke does. You have a choice – you can either justify going after her with me, or you can bag the whole operation and call it even."

"I can't tell you everything without endangering the timeline. Suarez was specific about…"

"I'm not asking you for specifics," Hawk interjected. "I'm asking you to justify putting more people, including yourself, at risk to get her back."

Flint was quick to answer. "Because we FUBAR'd her op, that's why." Then, he corrected himself. "_I_ screwed it up. She came to me for help, and I let my anger get in the way of what needed to be done. She tried to explain it to me, but I refused to listen. Now, Elwood's probably getting ready to rip out her fingernails, and I'm responsible for that."

"She wasn't exactly honest with us. You can't blame yourself for not trusting her. But there's a bigger issue here, and it's that you omitted details from us in the briefing about what went on in that mountain."

"I can't talk about it, Hawk," Flint said, feeling panic settle in his belly. Hawk was cornering him. For a brief moment, he knew what Suarez must have felt like, dodging questions at every turn.

"This isn't going to go away, Flint. If I'm asking these questions, you can bet the JCS or CIA are going to be doing the same very soon. And I guarantee you, they won't ask as nicely as I am right now."

"I'm prepared to deal with the consequences."

Hawk was quiet. He seemed to simmer in the darkness. Flint felt the tension from his commanding officer as it permeated the room.

"I can't protect you." Hawk's words seem to hang in the air. "This is like throwing a pebble in a pond. There will be a ripple effect none of us will be able to anticipate if it gets out of control."

The words stung at Flint as Suarez's voice rang out in his head. She had said nearly the same thing about all life events. He could never tell Hawk, could never reveal the moments with Suarez that were best kept confidential.

"Then cut me loose," Flint said. "If I have to do this on my own, I will."

"And what about her?" Hawk said pointedly, nodding toward Allison's still-sleeping form.

Flint looked at Allison sadly. Regret beat savagely in his chest. "She's something I can never have," he admitted in a near whisper.

"Maybe," Hawk said. "But you'll never know if you get yourself in the crosshairs of some agency." His frustration finally broke. "Dammit, Flint – let this go."

Anger caused Flint's jaw to clamp shut. His teeth ground slightly as he worked to control his rage. "Protecting the innocent is our job," he said in a near growl. "At least, that's the promise I made."

"Suarez is no innocent citizen, Flint. She's a player, and you need to be sure she's on the right side before you go running to her rescue. You're endangering your career, your teammates, and her," Hawk said, nodding again toward Allison.

Flint sat back in the chair. His fists clenched in anger, but he controlled himself. "Either order me to stand down, or give me the green light."

"In other words, stay out of your way?" Hawk challenged.

"Should I have ended that with a 'please'?"

Hawk shook his head. "Not your style."

Flint softened, knowing Hawk was trying to help. He knew the general would never have intervened in an effort to save his own butt. He was only looking out for Flint, and rightfully so. What the Joe team did reflected directly on its commander. Hawk was a fair man and a fierce warrior. He did not ask his team to do anything he was not willing or had already done himself. He had been around the block with Special Forces and covert operations. He had spilled his blood once, had seen good friends die in the line of duty. He was a warrior of high caliber to Flint, a man to be trusted. He commanded his troops with authority, but he knew he needed a cohesive sense of camaraderie among all the members of the team, from the enlisted support staff to command officers. Hawk's ability to lead was unquestioned, yet Flint suddenly felt his commander was being unfair.

"I can't let them have her like this, Hawk," Flint said, almost pleading.

"I know you can't," Hawk said, letting out a sigh, "which is why I'm affording you every resource you need to get her back in one piece. I just wanted to make sure your priorities were straight."

"You believe her, too?"

"No," Hawk said, his voice straining as he stood up from the chair. He shoved his hands in his pockets and walked toward the door of the room. He gave Flint a rueful smile. "I just didn't like Elwood."


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

Mainframe tossed the deactivated bug onto the table, in a manner that conveyed his disdain for Cobra and all the problems it caused. He put his feet up on his desk and clasped his hands behind his head. Flint had already done the same and had been waiting patiently for the tech to report his findings.

"Well?" Flint asked finally.

Mainframe shrugged. "It's a typical Cobra spy gadget. Whoever was listening on the other end was close and concealed."

"What about surveillance?"

Mainframe shook his head. "All clear. No one sitting out and about that we could see."

"Someone on the base, then?"

The thought was shocking to Flint, but not inconceivable. Cobra had infiltrated them before. Nevertheless, it was disconcerting how much might have been compromised as a result. Cobra could be as covert and as cunning as anything the United States could muster. It competed well against the forces of justice and sometimes won.

"You really think one of our own would turn on us?" Mainframe asked, brow furrowed at the prospect.

"I'm not ruling anything out at this point," Flint said with a sigh. And he did not. He had come to know better. "What about your Washington source? Anything yet?"

"I'm expecting a call any time now."

There was a soft knock at the door of Mainframe's office. Flint reached back and opened the door, not bothering to stand to greet the visitor. He instantly wished he had. He nearly fell off his chair when he saw the woman in the doorway. She was tall, with dark skin that reflected in coppery beauty. Her hair was pulled neatly back, pinned behind her head. Its pure black color matched the color of her tailored skirt and jacket. The white blouse she wore was a stark contrast yet complimentary to her stunning beauty. She held a black leather briefcase in her hand.

Flint looked to Mainframe for a clue to the woman's identity, but he found a scarcely breathing man whose jaw was agape and eyes were riveted to her. Flint realized the futility of asking Mainframe for information. He stood and held out his hand to the woman.

"Chief Warrant Officer Faireborn," she said before he could introduce himself, accepting his offer of a handshake.

"Yes, that's right," he confirmed. "You can call me Flint."

"Flint," she said in confirmation.

She looked beyond him at Mainframe. "Hello, Blaine," she said, her voice becoming the slightest bit more sultry as she gazed on the man.

Mainframe melted into a broad smile. "It's good to finally see you in person, Grace." He held out his hand for her and led her to a chair, closing the door to the office once she was seated.

Flint sat down again in his chair, watching the interaction between Mainframe and Grace.

"So," Flint said slowly, "I take it this is the first meeting between you two?"

Grace was poised and at ease around them. "Blaine and I have always teleconferenced."

"Until now," Mainframe said, clearing his throat afterward. He was smitten. There was simply no hiding it.

She, too, was concentrating on Mainframe. It reminded Flint of two teenagers in love. The long pause in conversation was a bit much for Flint. He wanted to move the occasion along as quickly as possible, suddenly feeling like he was intruding on a very significant moment.

"So," Flint said again, "you just happened to be in the neighborhood, Grace, or is there something we can do for you?"

Grace broke her gaze at Mainframe. Her cheeks became flushed with embarrassment. "I'm sorry," she said. "I found some information on your request."

Flint's curiosity was piqued. "And teleconferencing was out of the question?"

"Suffice to say that this is not something you want transmitted over communication lines. I felt it better to deliver the information in person."

Mainframe cleared his throat again, obviously not recovering with poise as quickly as she had. "What did you find, Grace?" He absentmindedly smoothed a hand through his hair.

"Before I get into it, you're sure you want to hear all this? It's a messy situation."

Flint was getting impatient. "There are people lying in hospital beds with holes in them. You better believe we want to hear it."

Grace looked at Flint with soft, understanding eyes. "Of course. What do you know about Elwood?"

Mainframe gave a quick summary. "Company spook. Blew in and out of here with the blessing of the Joint Chiefs, taking a souvenir when he left."

She crossed her long legs, her posture relaxed and confident. "He's the poster boy for breaking the rules. He's bounced from agency to agency because he has a hard time following orders. Most ops planners would call him a rogue at best."

"How does he get the call to come here if he's such a wildcard?" Flint asked.

"You might say he's a specialist. Elwood ranks among the best. He's phenomenally intelligent. He tests off the scale for IQ and all the physical metrics you can imagine. He's the pet of one General Larrabee."

"The JCS director?" Flint was incredulous.

Grace nodded. "He's been making power plays. Elwood has been his stepladder for quite a few operations that have gotten the attention of the upper officers, and even the president." She hooked an errant strand of hair behind her ear.

Mainframe seemed more composed as he grew used to Grace's presence. "What does Larrabee have to do with it?"

"You asked me to get a line on the reaction of Elwood's community over all this. I'm here to tell you that Larrabee's blood pressure is just short of having a stroke. He knows Elwood's gone mustang, and he has concerns."

"I take it," Flint suggested, "that Elwood is not in the service of the entire JCS?"

"No," she said slowly, emphasizing her point. "In fact, he's tolerated at best by them. He has a bad habit of doing what he thinks is best and not following mission parameters. Larrabee has had to push to keep him on the payroll."

"But now," Mainframe said, "they have a reason to get rid of him."

"Exactly," Grace concluded. "They got wind of Larrabee's bounty and took it as gospel that Elwood should be put on ice for good."

"What about the package he took?" Flint was careful not to mention Suarez, just in case Grace was not as informed as she appeared.

"Doctor Suarez's story has been limited in details to the rest of the JCS. She's considered just another casualty. They're more interested that an entire mountain base was destroyed and a dent was put in Cobra's operations. She's nothing more than an assigned operative to them. Time travel isn't on their minds in the least. They're not making that connection."

Flint felt a cold wave flow through his veins as she said the words. Grace was certainly in the know, and it was disconcerting to him just how much she was. He knew Mainframe would not have violated protocol and given her details.

"So, they're not interested in her exactly, then?" Flint asked.

Grace shook her head. "There's not enough information to entice them. Larrabee kept it as quiet as possible and sent Elwood to bat cleanup. But now, Elwood's bolted, and the good general is mad as hell."

Mainframe smiled quaintly. "How mad?"

"When all the funds are added up," Grace said, "something near three million and change."

Flint could not resist asking the obvious. "Where does a general get that kind of cash?"

Grace cocked an eyebrow. "I never said it was his cash. You might say there are emergency funds available for just such an occasion as the retrieval of operatives who have gone underground."

"Any idea where Elwood has gone?" Mainframe asked.

Grace reached down and opened the briefcase. She retrieved several photographs and handed them to Flint. "He's here," she said.

Flint grabbed the pictures from her hand, though he did not mean to be so eager. "He's where?"

If Grace was insulted, she did not show it. "A warehouse in Denver. The address is on the back. On the surface, it looks abandoned, but it's far from that. It's his base of operations. That group of apes you saw when he took her are all on his payroll – all ex-military and all very good at what they do."

Mainframe leaned over and looked at the photographs. "How do you know he's there?"

Grace hedged, then relented. "We put a tracker in his Wheaties. Without getting into specifics, we have an eye on him at all times."

The equation was becoming clear to Flint. "You and Larrabee aren't on the same team. Otherwise, he wouldn't be so nervous."

Grace smiled. "We're not even in the same league."

"Dare I ask?"

She scratched at her brow. "No," she said, still smiling.

Flint was still not satisfied. "What about Suarez? Your people aren't interested in getting a hold of her?"

She relaxed in her chair. "Unlike Larrabee and Elwood, we look before we leap. If Star Trek has taught us anything, it's that knowing the future is disastrous."

He wanted more than anything to know her affiliation, but her confidence made it clear the question would be useless. "It sounds like the circle of knowledge about everything is small."

"The flow of information was sterilized to the JCS. Thanks to your general's vagueness and our ability to strategically edit reports to the JCS, we were able to keep it quiet."

Mainframe sat back after he had seen enough of the warehouse pictures. "How did Larrabee find out about Suarez in the first place?"

Grace sighed. "We're still working on that one. The possibilities are numerous. Our concern right now is getting Suarez back from Elwood. Frankly, we're really not picky how that's done. Elwood is now considered expendable."

"Is Suarez with him?" Flint asked.

She shook her head. "We can't be sure, but my gut feeling is yes. She's worth money to him, and I doubt he'd let her out of his sight until the transaction was complete."

"Who's the buyer?"

"Cobra, most likely. They have the funds."

Mainframe grimaced with frustration. "And he's probably spilled the beans about who she is to them. Mindbender will have a field day if he gets his hands on her."

Flint's brain flashed to Mindbender, with his sinister monocle and handlebar mustache. The doctor was anything but good, using his exceptional intelligence in the best interests of Cobra. Torture was not out of his repertoire, and he would most surely do whatever he thought necessary to get answers out of Suarez. He would be careful to not kill her, but he could do so many things to make her wish he would.

"I suggest you get a retrieval team ready," Grace said, standing. "He won't stay in one place for long, and neither will she if he finds the right buyer."

She reached down and picked up the briefcase. The two men stood when she did. She shook hands with Flint, then with Mainframe. The contact between the tech and the mysterious woman lingered.

The smitten eyes returned between the two of them, amusing Flint.

"You have to go?" Mainframe asked.

"I'm due back in Washington as soon as possible," she said regretfully.

Mainframe looked dejected. "I see."

Her eyes were practically smoldering when she looked at Mainframe. Despite the fact that she was some sort of high level operative, she was still human and certainly had a thing for the man she called by his real first name.

"It was nice meeting you in person, though," she said, still holding to his hand.

They reluctantly parted. Grace was gone as elegantly as she had appeared. Mainframe recovered from her spell, though his reaction to her had been quite entertaining to Flint. They paged Hawk to the conference room. The synopsis of the meeting with Grace was quick and to the point.

Hawk nodded at the development. "Sounds like she's a reliable source."

"She's golden," Mainframe said confidently. "I trust her completely, sir."

Hawk looked at Flint, contemplating. "Pick your team," he said with determination.

Flint was all too happy to oblige him with the selections. "Mainframe will stay here and be our eyes. I'll take Scarlett and Leatherneck because of their familiarity with Suarez, plus an assault contingent."

"Fine."

"If it's all the same to you, General," Flint added, "I'd like Wild Bill to give us the ride there."

"Consider him off restriction," Hawk said without hesitation.

"Thank you," Flint said in relief. Bill was the only pilot he trusted.

"Let's make every effort to take Elwood alive," Hawk said. "I have a few questions I'd like to ask him."

"Yes, sir," Flint said, his voice laced with a need for revenge.

"Get it done," Hawk said.

Scarlett and Leatherneck responded promptly to their page to report to the command center just as Mainframe finished compiling briefing packets. Lieutenant Argyle, the utility assault team's leader, also reported. Wild Bill rolled in a few seconds later, accompanied by Lifeline.

"We didn't call for a medic on this one, Ed," he said kindly.

"I owe her, Flint. She's hurt, and she's going to need my help getting out of there," he said, pleading his case.

Flint knew there was no arguing with Lifeline, and he had to admit the medic had a point. Suarez was not in the greatest shape when Elwood kidnapped her. She might be in worse condition now.

"Agreed," Flint said. He motioned for Lifeline to take a seat at the conference table. He looked around the room at all of them. "Doctor Suarez has been located in a warehouse in Denver. Our good friend Elwood has her. He has a small, well-trained contingent with him. We're going to hit the warehouse fast and hard and take what we're there to get."

He stood and slowly walked around the table. "Elwood is to be taken alive if possible. However," he said, stopping, "I don't think anyone is going to shed a tear if he makes that impossible."

"The primary objective," he continued, "is Doctor Suarez. We're going to retrieve her safe and sound, not matter what it takes. Any questions?"

The room was silent.

"All right," Flint said with finality. "Lieutenant Argyle, brief your team on the entry tactic. We dust off in thirty." He looked around the table, satisfied with the team. "Dismissed."

The room cleared except for Scarlett, who stayed seated. When the door closed, she looked to Flint.

"You okay?" she asked with care.

Flint slumped down in the chair at the head of the conference table. "No," he said in a voice that sounded small in his ears. "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not sure I can follow Hawk's orders to bring Elwood home in one piece."

"We'll play it as best we can, Dash," she offered.

"What's your worry?" he asked, knowing she was going somewhere with the question.

Always direct, she said, "I want to make sure you have your head screwed on straight is all. You're not the only one on this op. There are more involved now. Unlike Elwood, they're not expendable."

He took offense at her words. "I know how to do my job, Shana."

"I think you're on overload," she said directly.

"If you're suggesting I'd put the team at risk . . ."

"Not intentionally, no," she said, warding off a tirade. "But I think a person can only take so much."

"I'm going to see this through," he told her. "We didn't start it, but we're certainly going to finish it. And Suarez is not going to pay the price for helping us."

Scarlett nodded after a moment. She stood and backed away from the conference table. "Just remember," she said, "you have someone waiting for you when this is all done. Don't go getting yourself killed because you lost your head."

Then he was alone in the room. He leaned his head back, stretching the taut muscles in his neck. His eyes closed for just a moment. Only then did he realize how tired he really was. He had been running mostly on adrenaline. His body was a collection of bruises and cuts, soreness that seemed to occupy every fiber. He envisioned taking Elwood into custody and what condition Suarez might be in, neither of which was satisfying. He knew Elwood would fight, and it was doubtful that Suarez was receiving the care she required in her injured state.

Flint felt the heat of anger in his face and suddenly realized what Scarlett was warning against. He was on the edge, knowing the rules of engagement still applied but not caring. He would be tested in taking Elwood into custody, alive and well.

Accidents could always happen.


	17. Chapter 17

Author's Note: Ah, so close to being done! One more chapter, and I think we'll be done! Chapter 17 

Three black SUVs were waiting at Denver International Airport when Wild Bill landed the chopper. The Blackhawk looked out of place on the tarmac of the commercial hub amid large passenger jets that sat parked, waiting to load and unload passengers. Three Joes and seven fully equipped assault team members dispersed cleanly to the waiting vehicles and moved out in a train toward the city.

Flint watched the terrain as the caravan traveled along Route 70 toward the city. Radio traffic was kept to a minimum. The briefing had been thorough, and the command center had efficiently presented assault data on the warehouse located off Federal Boulevard. They would hit it hard and fast and hope to hell no curveballs were thrown at them in the process.

He could feel Scarlett watching him as Leatherneck drove them toward Denver. Flint adjusted the straps on his vest, unable to find a comfortable median no matter how hard he tried. His hand slipped into the utility pocket of his BDUs. The lighter was there, secure and solid in his hand. He felt his heart begin to speed up with excitement as they finally neared the warehouse. The SUVs rode up on it like cowboys on horse during a cattle run, three abreast and in a hurry. Flint knew the decrepit state of the outside of the building from the pictures Grace had brought, but seeing it in person gave the word new meaning. Windows panels were broken out in various places, leaving dark gaps in the side that looked like missing teeth to him.

Flint snapped on the pen camera attached to the headset he wore. He keyed the mic on his radio.

"Mainframe, you copy?"

"Loud and clear, Flint."

"How's our video feed?" he asked, panning for good measure.

"You're five by. We're good to go on the support side."

"Copy that," Flint said quietly. Then he nodded at Argyle.

The team moved silently toward the door. The assault team moved in first, so quiet that even their boots were hushed on the broken pavement outside the point of entry. M4s with 203 grenade launchers underneath pointed toward the door as the entry team gathered in order around it, careful to keep barrels pointed downward and fingers off the trigger. Argyle looked to Flint for permission to begin the operation. With a nod, the team burst through the door.

The inside of the warehouse was dank and dark. Water dripped down and pooled on the old concrete, traversing rusted beams high in the air above them. Rats squealed in the far reaches of the area as light stabbed like a knife through the darkness. Flint looked around, trying to determine where to go. He had expected Elwood's operation to be just inside the doors, but what they found was completely opposite. He keyed his radio for Mainframe.

"What the hell are we supposed to find in here?" he hissed quietly.

Mainframe paused. "I don't know, Flint. I thought it was going to be just inside the door."

"Get Grace on the line and find out where we're supposed to go. I feel like we've got targets painted on our backs."

"Stand by," Mainframe said in the earpiece.

Flint looked around again. He ordered the group to fan out, not wanting them clustered and giving Elwood a chance to take out the entire group at once. He walked forward, taking in the scene. His mind kicked into observation mode, trying to think like Elwood. They were both operatives, both in the business of secrecy and hiding large operations. It was not the first time Flint had seen a base hiding in plain sight. As he looked down at the dirty concrete, he saw boot imprints and lines, like wheel tracks. His brain envisioned Suarez being wheeled inside the warehouse, under duress and restrained.

He motioned at Leatherneck and Scarlett to come take a look at the tracks. Leatherneck took the lead, following the trail to a large piece of machinery. Its parts had seized long ago with the destructive effects of water on metal. He stooped down at the edge of the component the size of a small car. The wheel tracks seemed to go under the metal housing. Flint walked to the back of the unit. An arc had been scraped into the concrete away from the machine where the metal had gouged the floor. He looked at Leatherneck and nodded. They had found the entrance.

"Mainframe," Flint said quietly into the radio, "we've found it. The facility is below ground. Get me some info about what's underneath us."

"Copy that, Flint," Mainframe said. "Stand by."

"No time," Flint said in response. "We can't wait. We're on the move. Give me a direction to go once we get down there."

"There's plenty of time to wait, Flint," a voice said loudly from the catwalks high above the assault team.

The reaction was swift from the team as barrels of weapons suddenly pointed upward, looking for targets. They were greeted by barrels pointed right back at them. Flint looked up and saw Deadnoks, Cobra soldiers and the team that had accompanied Elwood to kidnap Suarez. They outnumbered the Joe team almost two-to-one.

"Surprise, surprise," Elwood said, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the rails of the catwalk. "You should probably check for surveillance before you sneak up on a building. Might have saved you all this trouble. Then again, maybe you should have just let well enough alone. She's not worth it."

Flint's teeth ground together. "Where is she?"

Elwood rolled his eyes. "Like I'm going to tell you? Please." He clicked his tongue in chastisement. "You really should know better."

Flint kept his rifle trained on Elwood's head. The tri-dot sight was aimed perfectly. He wanted nothing more than to pull the trigger and rid the world of the man, but he knew that would be a mistake. There were too many who wanted Elwood alive for questioning. To put him out of his misery would have been too good a favor.

"You know why we're here," Flint answered. "Give her to us, and we'll call this even."

Elwood laughed out loud. "Dude, look around you! You're a little outnumbered. All I have to do is sneeze and you'll be a headline."

"You're batting for the wrong team."

"It's just business, Flint. It was a lucrative deal even you wouldn't have passed up. Besides, you should be enjoying this. Think of it as revenge for your girlfriend getting shot. Suarez will get what's coming to her, I'll be rich, and you'll be able to sleep knowing justice has been served."

Scarlett shook her head. "You're sick."

Elwood shrugged. "Been called worse in my day."

Flint controlled his breathing. "Where is she?" he asked calmly, knowing shouting would get him nowhere.

"I'm giving you the chance to walk away, Flint," Elwood said. "All you have to do is walk away. She's not worth it. You and I know that."

"Not going to happen."

"I'm serious," Elwood warned. "Most of these aren't my boys up here. I can't control what Cobra folks do. It's in their nature to want to puree you with bullets. Me, I'm more sophisticated. I see a higher relationship opportunity here. It would be a shame to let pride ruin that."

Flint looked around him with his eyes. He saw Argyle and his team taking small steps to get into position. Leatherneck and Scarlett were tense, fingers on the triggers of their weapons, each picking targets. They were ready to make the move as soon as Flint gave the signal. Elwood was a liar. There was no way the team was going to leave the warehouse without a fight. Cobra was there with him. They were there in force to capture new prizes other than to just take custody of Suarez.

"You're a traitor, Elwood," Flint accused, buying time for the teams to get into position.

"That's harsh of you. I'm a businessman, Flint. I make deals for the A-Team all the time. Thing is, the B-Team, or should I say C-Team, has just as much to offer me for half the work."

The Dreadnoks snickered at Elwood's joke.

Elwood smiled in appreciation of their grasp of his inference. "All you have to do is walk backward, Flint. Go out the way you came and we all live to fight another day."

Flint looked down at the machine again. He knew he was close. Otherwise, Elwood would not have been so nervous. He did one more check on his team. Each had strategically moved to defensible positions. It would be a hell of a fight. He looked over at Argyle, who had the same idea as Flint. The lieutenant nodded, as if to say he was on the same page. They had come to get Suarez. They were not going to leave empty-handed.

He looked up at Elwood once more and smiled. "I don't think so."

The first volley was issued from Flint's rifle. It knocked Elwood back against the railing of the catwalk but did not cause him to fall. Flint rushed forward to the machine housing and used it for cover. The Cobra contingent rained bullets from above them. Argyle's team responded with full force. The warehouse lit up with multiple flashes from weapons on both sides. He saw Argyle reach up and key the mic earpiece he wore.

"Go for it, sir!" Argyle shouted above the melee. "We'll hold 'em here!"

Flint turned around and, with his back against the housing, pushed with everything he had. The housing moved in the arc he had seen on the floor. He nearly fell into the staircase underneath it. Bright light shown up from the passage, briefly obliterating any detail of what lay beyond the staircase. He dropped down out of the line of fire and brought his rifle up to the ready. He was greeted with more rounds as two of Elwood's guards opened up on him. Flint tumbled down the stairs, trying to regain his orientation. The fall was his salvation. The guards were unable to successfully acquire a moving target. They remained stationary, giving him the perfect marks as he came to a stop at the bottom of the stairs. He squeezed hard on the trigger, feeling the repetitive kick of full auto blowback as he sprayed bullets in their direction. They were knocked to the floor, writhing in pain.

Flint's tunnel vision opened to see what lay beyond the two targets presented to him at the stairs. The room was a large lab. Computer consoles created a maze of obstacles. On the far side was a clean room enclosed by glass. His heart skipped when he realized it was more than a clean room. It was more of a surgical suite. He could see people inside it, looking out the windows at him. They wore surgical garb, sterile gloved hands raised in the air as they watched the events unfold. He could not see beyond them, unable to determine if Suarez was with them. Seven more troopers entered the lab area at the sound of the commotion.

He scrambled forward to one of the computer consoles on hands and knees, leaning up with his back to the faux wood. Flint quickly ejected the spent magazine from the G36. It clattered on the floor as he reached for a replacement, slamming it into the port. He was locked and loaded and ready to go again. The sounds of battle from the warehouse filtered down the stairs. It was an intense exchange of gunfire. His ears picked out the differences in weapons. There was a distinct difference in the rate of fire from enemy weapons versus that of his team. The Joes were using controlled bursts, even single shots, to conserve ammunition and make each round count.

The console was suddenly pelted with a line of fire from the other side of the room. Bits of pressboard rained down on him as he ducked closer to the floor for cover. The sound of gunfire roared in his head as it bounced off the walls of the lab.

He heard the radio traffic of the battle in his ear as Argyle issued orders to his team to attempt a flanking maneuver. Then he heard Leatherneck radio for additional support, only to be told it was inbound but that there would be a delay as troops massed and boarded transports. Flint performed his own flanking maneuver to the next console set, staying low and keeping his head out of target range. He ducked his head around the corner to get a confirmed count of how many were trying to kill him. His brain took a snapshot. He returned to cover and processed what he saw – three to the left, four to the right. They were moving in on him, quickly converging on his position.

He put down his rifle for a moment and unhooked a flashbang from his vest. He grasped the canister with one hand and pulled the pin with the other. Flint lobbed it in the middle of the two packs and closed his eyes. His hands picked up his rifle once more. The blast was sharp in his ears, and the burst of light from the diversion permeated his closed eyes. He had trained endlessly with assault teams in reacting quicker than the enemy could recover from the shock of the tactic. He popped up over the console and lit up on the three approaching from the left. The shots were not the most accurate he had ever fired, but he managed to drop two of the guards before being pushed back by the rest of them. Two of his shots slammed into the windows of the sterile room, giving him a moment of panic that he may have hit Suarez if she were there. It most certainly ruled out the use of a grenade, which would have brought most of the confrontation to an end.

Flint caught movement down the stairs. The guards reacted almost instantly to the new intruder. Flint rose up and provided cover fire as Lifeline dove down the stairs and jockeyed for cover behind the closest console. He scurried to Flint's position, hunkering down low to avoid being hit.

"You gotta stop making friends this way," Lifeline yelled, ducking down suddenly as more chips from the console splintered toward him.

"Now you tell me," Flint said back to him. He rose up and fired off more shots to keep the advancing guards at bay. Three still remained, regrouping and forming a new plan of attack. "How's it going up there?"

"Backup is inbound. Argyle's kids are giving 'em hell. They're holding their own."

Another series of shots zinged over their heads and embedded in the concrete near the staircase. Flint looked at the diagonal pattern they made.

"I've had just about enough of this," he said. He got up and positioned himself to move.

He heard the troopers moving in on their position. Their boots kicked debris out of the way, marking their progress. Flint closed his eyes and listened intently for cues. His mind envisioned the location of the three remaining targets. He clicked the selector on his G36 to full auto and waited for the moment to come.

The first trooper was so close when the bullets struck that blood spattered back at Flint. He ignored the gruesome result and continued firing as the trooper dropped to the floor. The second was already bearing down on Flint, returning fire when he, too, was hit. This time, Flint scored a headshot that immediately eliminated the threat.

The two remaining troopers opened up fully on Flint's position, driving him back behind the console and pinning him down so that he could not move. There was a gap between the consoles that would expose him fully if he tried to go back to his original cover. More rounds spit into the console wood. Flint waited until he could hear them approaching again. He had been trained to use what seemed like an obstacle as a tool, a weapon in battle. The environment was never supposed to be the enemy to the warrior who could master it.

He waited until they closed in on his cover. Then he rolled onto the floor, firing at the legs of the two troopers. He watched as his rounds pounded into the first trooper's shins. He saw bone shatter and eject away from his khakis. The second trooper took a few to the upper thighs, falling backward to the floor. Flint kept firing with abandon, not caring that he kept firing long after they were dead. Gunpowder was in the air in a haze, burning his sinuses as the lab area fell silent. He waited, listening, recovering and slowing his breathing. When he was certain he heard no other movement, he cautiously got to one knee, dropping the empty magazine from the G36 and replacing it with yet another.

The sounds of the battle up in the warehouse had changed. Small explosions erupted and filtered down through the staircase. Flint recognized them as grenade action. He could not tell who was firing them. The detail of the sound was not that good. All he knew for sure was that heavier munitions had come into play in the battle with the Dreadnoks and Elwood's hired hands. Then the radio communications sprang to life again.

"Nice shot, Corben!" Argyle congratulated. "Team two, they're bugging out to your side. Make sure they don't see the light outside."

"Copy that, L-T," came the reply. Flint was unable to identify the voice.

Scarlett called out to Flint. "Flint, how's it going down there?"

"Fine," Flint said, forcing airiness into his voice. "Made four new friends. And you?"

"Situation is coming under control. The Dreadnoks bailed on Elwood. We're mopping up him and his boys now. Backup is three minutes out. What's your situation?"

"I'll get back to you on that. Just get Elwood and his pals secured. Lifeline and I are going to check it out down here."

"Roger that."

He saw Lifeline cautiously peer over the remains of a computer console. He surveyed the area, looking for any more intruders. Flint stood up, checking, too. He did not trust that the area was clear, even though it looked as though all the bad guys had been taken out of commission.

Lifeline looked to the sterile room. "Is she in there?"

Flint looked, too. "If she's not, then we're going to ask them," he said, indicating the workers in scrubs with their hands in the air.

"Mindbender?" Lifeline asked.

"Don't see him," Flint said, stepping toward the room.

The glass shielded the voices of those inside, preventing Flint from hearing their plan of action. There were five of them. Each wore surgical masks and surgical scrubs, hiding their true identities. For all he knew, Mindbender could have been among them, but he doubted it. Mindbender was not the type to stick around when a Joe assault turned up the heat. He recalled Suarez's note that Cobra operatives always made sure there was an escape. Besides, he calculated, he had seen the good doctor enough times that he would have recognized his eyes in a heartbeat.

He looked beyond the workers and saw medical equipment – monitors, in particular. He saw dips and spikes in multiple colors play across the screens. Others scrolled alphanumeric information Flint could not discern.

There was one door into the room. It was large enough for a gurney to fit through it. The round stainless steel knob on the door was unlocked. Flint reached out and turned it. He pushed the door open and stepped inside, with Lifeline was a step behind him. Flint trained his weapon on one of the workers.

"Where is she?" he asked, his voice icy and unforgiving.

An older man stepped forward, his hands raised. Silver hair tipped his sideburns that were visible above his mask. Crow's feet accentuated his ice blue eyes. He was short, tentative in his movements. Flint reacted to the man moving toward him, aiming for the man's head.

"Don't kill us," the man said, stopping short.

"Where is she!" Flint shouted.

The man gave the situation a thought and stepped aside. Then Flint saw her, and he suddenly found it difficult to breathe.

She was on the gurney. Her head was turned to the side, away from him. Her hair had been pulled back, some of it shaved where a thick silver plate had been attached to her temple, connected to one of the monitoring machines with a series of leads. They had embedded it in her skull. The skin around the plate was red and swollen, the procedure having been recently completed. She was asleep, probably induced by the experimentation team. He looked to see if she was still breathing.

"What the _hell_ did you do to her?" he asked slowly, quietly.

"We – we were under orders," the man stammered, trying to defend the scene.

"Get it off her," Flint ordered sharply.

"We can't. You can't just remove it. It'll kill her."

It was not what Flint wanted to hear. He bounded forward and pressed the barrel of his rifle into the man's temple.

"I don't think we're communicating," Flint said, seething.

Lifeline moved in, sidestepping the confrontation. He leaned over the gurney, examining the device. He looked back at the man.

"What does it do?" Lifeline demanded. The timbre of his voice was unlike anything Flint had ever heard. It was angry, enraged. Flint saw the ire in Lifeline's eyes. So did the man.

"It's a probe," the man answered. "A memory probe," he added for clarification.

Lifeline inspected the device more closely. "I'm no expert, but I'd say it's Mindbender's work," he said to Flint.

Flint heard footsteps out in the lab area. He saw Scarlett and Leatherneck come into view, moving toward the room with caution, checking to make sure no surprises awaited them behind the other consoles. Once they were sure the room was clear, they met up with Flint at the door.

Scarlett looked into the room where Lifeline was standing.

"Oh, my God," she breathed, shocked at the sight.

Leatherneck took a look, too. "Shit," he whispered.

Flint knew time was passing by too quickly. "Leatherneck, take these people into custody." Then he added, "Leave the professor," indicating the man should stay right where he was.

He reached out and tore down the man's mask, revealing a face he did not recognize. It was typical of Cobra to contract out work to those willing to do it.

"Was Mindbender here?" Flint asked.

"He was," the man said, looking more and more nervous as his counterparts were ushered out of the room. "He left when he heard the gunfire."

"You should have followed," Flint admonished through gritted teeth. "Get over there." He shoved the man toward Lifeline.

Scarlett took up position on the other side of the room, checking the readouts on the monitors in an effort to decipher what was happening.

Lifeline began examining Suarez. Her eyes were moving rapidly under her eyelids, as if REM sleep had kicked into overdrive. He pulled a pair of latex gloves from a box on the wall and snapped them onto his hands. His fingers prodded the device, trying to determine just how deep it really was.

"She's stable, I assure you," the man said.

"How do we get this off her?" Lifeline asked, not bothering to look at the man.

"Sever the connection, and you kill her," he warned.

"Yeah, we've established that," Lifeline snapped. "Now, answer the question."

The man hesitated. "It's not meant to be removed."

"What do you do – suck her dry and toss her out with the garbage?" Flint grilled, stepping menacingly toward the man.

"I'm just a surgeon," the man stammered, backing away from Flint. "I didn't invent the thing."

Lifeline straightened. "Lifeline to Mainframe – get Doc on the line, pronto. We have a medical emergency."

Flint looked to the medic. "Ed?"

Lifeline shook his head in frustration. He looked nervous, like when they were on the shore of the river and he had been tending to Jaye. He motioned for Flint to step outside the room. Scarlett took over guarding the surgeon.

"There's no way we can move her," he said quietly. "If our boy in there is telling the truth, she's in a lot of trouble. I need qualified instruction on what to do."

Doc entered into the communications stream on Flint's headset. They switched channels to isolate the consultation with Lifeline. Flint watched as Lifeline panned around the room and presented the situation to the Joe's chief medical officer. Flint listened as Doc analyzed everything he was seeing, stating he was inbound to the location for a better look.

The news was not good. Doc spent over an hour studying the device and the readouts on the monitors. Flint waited patiently, letting the doctor work. When he had finished, he approached Flint, his shoulders tense and his face hard.

"It's not good," he told Flint grimly but honestly. "There's no way we're going to move her from here, and even if we could, there's no getting it out of her without doing irreparable damage. According to their surgeon, we'd need the exact pathways Mindbender used to install it in order to remove it."

Flint felt his chest tighten at the news. "Pathways?"

"The fibers are woven throughout her brain, like a net. It's basically hardwired to her body in an effort to capture memory activity, so we're being told by Doctor Kildare over there. We cut the wrong thing at the wrong time, and it'll be like cutting her spinal cord."

"Does that thing even work?" Flint asked, disbelieving, looking in at the machines stationed along the walls of the suite.

Doc shook his head. "Whether it does or doesn't makes no difference. The fibers have been implanted. They're a part of her autonomic functions. Screw that up, and you stop her breathing and her heart."

Flint did not utter another word. His anger completely silenced him. He turned and bounded up the staircase into the warehouse. Security teams had locked down the area. The rest of the surgical team what was left of the armed contingent had been taken into custody and evacuated for questioning. Flint saw the damage from the shootout with Elwood's team. He looked for Elwood and spotted him sitting on a chair, handcuffed and under armed guard while a medic tended to a flesh wound to the shoulder. Flint made haste toward where he was seated. He pushed the medic out of the way and grabbed the agent at the shoulder, digging strong fingers into the tender wound.

Elwood gave an anguished cry. "Son of a bitch!" he hollered.

"Yes, you are," Flint said, his eyes wide with malice. He flexed his fingers, sending another wave of pain into Elwood. Neither the security detail nor the medic intervened. "Tell me how to get that thing out of her."

A thin layer of sweat formed on Elwood's forehead. "It can't be removed," he said in a tight voice. "She's a vegetable."

His words pushed Flint over the edge. He slammed a closed fist into Elwood's jaw and knocked him off the chair. He pursued him to the floor, landing more punches, drawing blood from Elwood's nose and mouth. Elwood struggled to get away from the assault, but his hands cuffed behind his back made that impossible. He suffered Flint's merciless attack.

Flint grasped Elwood's throat and squeezed. "How much was she worth to you? How much!"

Elwood did not answer. He continued his struggle to free himself from Flint's clutch.

Strong hands hooked under Flint's arms, pulling him away from Elwood. Leatherneck's powerful arms lifted him into the air and set him in an opposite direction. He held Flint at bay, physically restraining him as guards moved in to protect Elwood.

"He's not worth it, Flint. Let Hawk handle him," Leatherneck said, trying to from going a second round.

Flint shrugged off Leatherneck's hold. He felt out of control, rage enveloping his senses. Elwood was screaming at the medic and the guards to keep Flint away from him. Leatherneck pushed Flint further away from the scene.

The drama had caught the attention of everyone in the warehouse. Flint felt the stares but did not care. It was all the better if it kept people out of his way. He rumbled down the stairs to lab once more, crossing the room in large strides until he was back in the surgical. Doc had put a nasal cannula on Suarez, illustrating that only simple things could be done to sustain her. Flint grabbed the enemy surgeon by the collar and dragged him toward the gurney.

"Can you wake her up?" he demanded.

The surgeon's likely steady hands were shaking, truly afraid of what Flint might do. "Yes, I think so."

"You _think_ so?" Flint challenged, half hoping the doctor would recant his statement and give Flint permission to exact more justice.

"I need to issue commands at that workstation over there," he said, nodding in the direction of the bank of machines along the wall.

Flint pulled him toward the workstations with a rough hand, nearly throwing the doctor at them.

"Do it," he ordered. He pulled out his sidearm and put it to the doctor's temple. "She so much as hiccups, and you're dead."

The doctor bent toward the keyboard and began typing, hitting the backspace several times to correct typos in the commands. The shaking in his hands worsened. Flint kept the gun firmly in the doctor's temple until the typing was done.

Flint glanced over at Suarez. She remained still.

"I don't see her waking up," Flint said threateningly.

"Give it a moment," the surgeon pleaded. His voice trembled as he said it.

Then Suarez began to open her eyes. She fought to swim to the surface of consciousness. Flint pushed the surgeon to the side and went to where she could see a friendly face the moment she was awake. Doc stood on the other side, monitoring the event.

Flint took her hand in his, careful to avoid disturbing the IV lines that had been inserted to sustain her. Her focus trained on him, then she surveyed the room. Her breathing was staggered as she realized something was desperately wrong. He saw realization take hold with her. She had most likely remembered being brought there, had been awake as they prepped her for the procedure. Mindbender took a sadistic pleasure in making sure his subjects felt fear and understood the power he held over them.

Doc held her head steady, not willing to allow it to move and dislodge anything that had been implanted.

Flint looked over his shoulder at Scarlett. "Clear this room." Then he revised his order. "Clear the entire area. Seal off those stairs. No one in or out."

Scarlett spoke to everyone in the area. "You heard the man. Let's clear out of here."

Then Flint looked up at Doc and Lifeline, who stood by their patient. "You, too. Clear out of here."

The room emptied as he had ordered. He waited until he saw Scarlett ascend the staircase. The lab area was completely silent.

He concentrated on Suarez again. "Can you hear me?" he asked softly.

"Yes," she said in a quiet breath. He could see her anguish at her plight and felt his insides being torn apart. She knew what had happened.

He reached into the utility pocket of his BDUs and pulled out the lighter. Flint showed it to her. "Can this take you home?"

Her speech was more lucid than he expected. "Might not be anything to go home to," she said.

"But there might be, right?"

"I don't know," she said. "I can open a portal, but if it's black, my time is over." Her breathing was quick. He could feel her pulse thumping in her wrist.

"We'd take care of you," he promised.

"You don't understand," she said with as much frustration as she could muster. "It doesn't change anything. If there's nowhere for me to go, I have to end here. I'm not meant to exist in this time."

"But there might be a chance," he offered, desperate.

She closed her eyes. "You have to do what I asked if it's not there, Flint. You have to preserve the timeline, or things will be all wrong. Promise me."

His mind raged that it was all wrong, that there had to be another answer. How things had become so twisted so quickly floored him. Her perception of time seemed impossible, but he had come to trust she was right. She had been willing to die once. Now, she was willing to do it again. Flint had learned that he had no other choice.

"I promise," he said.

He slid the lighter apart, placing the housing carefully on the bed. He pushed the tiny device into her palm, cradling it with her, sandwiching her hand between his. He helped her with it, holding it so she could operate the tiny control panel. She stopped after entering the instructions and looked at him intently. He knew then everything was ready.

A small tear escaped the corner as her eyes closed and ran unabated down her cheek.

"I'm afraid," she said in a barely audible whisper. Her eyes opened and locked to his again.

"Me, too," he said.

Her thumb grazed the last key on the device. A blue streak shot out of it and expanded into a shimmering disc on the other side of the room. The insides of the disc folded over and over, reminding Flint of a taffy puller, stretching and compressing plasma over and over in a repeating circular motion. The air crackled with streaks of electricity that arced outward into the room.

Suarez's eyes were riveted to the sight. Flint was barely breathed as they waited. It seemed an ironic eternity before there was a change. The pulling motion slowed, like a wheel of fortune that slowed, threatening bankruptcy or promising the grand prize. The cycles ticked down until all motion stopped and all was still and silent.

The surface of the arc shimmered and turned charcoal grey. They stared at it, shocked at the result. Then Suarez closed her eyes and began to cry in subdued sobs.

Flint did not know what to say. An apology was completely inadequate for the events that had transpired. He felt his insides turn cold as he realized what he was now tasked to do. He had promised.

He wiped at her tears with his thumb, feeling his own well in his eyes. His mouth went slack, unable to speak to comfort her. It had all been so unfair, so wrong. Time, it seemed, was a beast that consumed souls at its leisure with careless disregard for the pain it caused.

She recovered enough to look at him again. Her eyes were red and swollen. "It's time, Flint."

He was not sure what to do. "How?"

"Pull the plug," she said, indicating the leads attached to the device. "Just disconnect it."

He reached up and carefully took hold of the main line. His fingers tightened on it, and he made sure his hands were steady.

"I'm so sorry," he said in a voice so small it was barely there.

She reached up with her hand and covered his on the line. Her touch spoke volumes to him. It was an effort to exonerate him of all his guilt in killing her for the second time.

"Do it," she said.

It was time. He tightened his fingers on the line and began to take up the slack on it until it was taut. His heart was beating rapidly, pounding out of his chest as he prepared to make the final pull.

"That won't be necessary," a strongly accented voice said from the other side of the room.

Flint whirled around, dropping his grip on the line. A wiry man with gray hair stood there in a white lab coat. The dark disc was his backdrop, making him look like an angel.

"What the hell?" Flint hissed.

Suarez gave a laugh of relief that somehow thrilled Flint to the core. The man smiled and stood at the end of the bed. He looked down at her with compassion and a smile on his face that was gentle and soothing. He glanced at Flint and nodded.

"Well done, Flint," he congratulated.

Flint looked at Suarez for guidance. "I don't understand."

"Byron," she said with blessed relief in her voice, smiling. "This is one of the members of the council."

Byron nodded. "Sorry I'm late," he apologized congenially, smiling at them warmly. "You didn't leave much of a window."

"Window?" Flint asked, confused.

"I had to wait until she was gone before I could do anything about it," Byron explained. "I could explain it more, but then we'd be bordering on violating the rules of knowing the future."

Suarez smiled. "Then Byron would have to kill you," she joked, a grin spreading across her face.

Flint suddenly regained his sense of reality. He found no humor in the situation. "Can you fix this?" he asked pointedly, indicating the device attached to her temple.

Byron smiled again, pleased. "Yes," he said with satisfaction, "we can fix it."

A man and a woman, dressed in the same lab coat as Byron appeared and flanked him. They, too, smiled as they appeared.

"If you'll step away, Flint," Byron said, "we'll take her home."

Flint tried to process what he was seeing. He moved out of the way as the two assistants moved in to work on Suarez. The woman bent down and whispered something in Suarez's ear that elicited a humorous giggle. Then, she detached the lines from the device. Suarez went still, her eyes changing to a frozen stare. The monitors on the wall shrieked alarm as her vital signs plummeted.

"Hey!" Flint shouted, alarmed. He lunged forward and tried to stop them from taking her.

"It's quite all right, Flint," Byron assured, blocking him. "She'll be just fine."

The assistants began moving the gurney toward the disc. Flint watched as the trio disappeared into the darkness. Then he was alone in the room with Byron.

"Time has been restored, thanks to you," he said.

"You killed her!"

"No," Byron said calmly. "Right now, in my time, a team of scientists is restoring her to perfect health." He held out his hand to Flint, his eyes understanding of the strangeness of the situation. "You are to be commended for your bravery and your willingness to do something so difficult."

Flint tentatively accepted the handshake. "But you disconnected her," he said with desperation.

"You came to trust her," Byron said. "Now, it's time to trust one last time. I assure you that she is in good hands, hands that care for her as one of their own."

Flint peered into the darkness, trying to find her. His body had the urge to run after her, but his mind held the reins, stopping him.

Byron moved toward the disc, stopping just short of its threshold. He looked back at Flint and smiled kindly. "Stay your course, Flint. You've done well so far. You should be proud."

Then the man stepped over the threshold and faded into nothingness. The disc suddenly collapsed in on itself and was gone. Flint walked over to where it had been and reached out, waving his hands in the space it had occupied. He stood there, shocked. Her words about the tight-knit group to which she belonged echoed in his mind. They had cared for her as though a precious commodity.

He found himself trudging up the staircase in shock, trying to process it all. Scarlett looked at him, concerned as he made it once again into the warehouse again. He could tell by the look on her face that she knew something was wrong or at least that something significant had happened.

"Flint?" she asked, carefully touching his arm.

He did not answer.

"Flint?" she asked again. "What about Suarez?"

His eyes bore into Elwood, wishing he could go another round with the traitor. Perhaps that time would come, as well, just as her time to leave this world had. It was something he would have to wait on, be patient about, perhaps for some time. Still, there was something supremely satisfying in being the one to tell Elwood that his prize was no more, that none of it had been worth it.

"She's gone," Flint said.

He walked out into the cooling night air, seeing a sky filled with stars. He looked up them with new eyes and marveled at that which he had never taken time to appreciate before he met Nancy Suarez. He breathed in deeply, letting the frosty air fill his lungs.

Wild Bill stood by, leaning against the Blackhawk that had been set down in the parking lot of the warehouse. His arms were folded, his confident demeanor making the Marlboro Man look like a complete sissy.

"Where to?" Bill drawled, seemingly nonplussed.

Flint smiled for the first time in days, and it felt good. The answer was simple and had become as clear as the sky above him.

"Back to my girl."


	18. Chapter 18

Author's Note: I would like to sincerely thank you all for the feedback, especially Calcitrix who has consistently read each chapter and left a response. It's been a really wonderful time writing this, and I'm mulling taking a crack at a second story I had in mind.

**Again, thanks and I hope you like this final installment!**

**Chapter 18**

"Two more."

He watched the muscles in her back tense as she pulled up on the free weight in her hand in the spare room he had converted into an exercise gym. She was bent over the weight bench, supporting herself with a knee and a hand as she worked to regain her strength. Her tank top was dark with sweat.

Flint could hear her grunt with the pain as she lowered the weight down again, straightening her arm. He knew the old adage was true.

"Come on, one more," he encouraged. "No pain, no gain."

She stabbed a glance at him out of the corner of her eye. "Easy for you to say. Can't wait to hit the shower."

"One more," he said, undaunted at her complaint.

She had come to live in his house while she was recovering, much to the raised eyebrows of commanders outside the Joe echelon. It was a logical move to him. Flint had exercise equipment, an extra bedroom, and Allison was certainly unable to fully take care of herself while recovering. It had been over a month since the attack on the mountain. Her motivation to get out of the hospital had pushed Hawk to make arrangements that she earned and deserved.

"Don't make me regret this decision," Hawk had warned Flint on the side.

So far, it had been good. Nothing had happened to give Hawk any worries.

Flint watched as she pulled up one last time on the weight, the muscles rippling in her back as she struggled to reach the mark one last time. She dropped the weight hard on the floor as she finished, having pushed her body to the limit for the session.

He helped her sit on the side of the bench. His eyes involuntarily strayed to the edge of her tank top. Before, he would have been drinking in the sight of cleavage. Now, his eyes were drawn to the scar that was just visible above the fabric. He saw tiny white dots of scar tissue on either side of the incision mark where staples had been used to close the skin after her surgery. Her torso had been opened up like a set of barn doors in order to repair the damage. Doc had done a good job. Allison's prognosis was good. Whether she would return to active duty remained in question, but she had told Flint she had every intention of getting back into the game. One thing was certain – she was angry. Cobra had irrevocably changed her life, had put a bump in the road of her career. For that, she was inconsolable.

"At least it's straight," she said, reaching for a towel. She had noticed him looking.

He smiled. "I like it. Makes you look tough."

"You just have a thing for tough women," she said slyly. She began gently drying her neck.

"Yeah, well, you certainly qualify."

She craned her neck downward, rubbing at tense muscles. "Don't feel so tough lately."

He sensed the door to talk opening. It had been closed since she was released. Various doctors and caregivers had told him that it would take time for her to open up about it. She had been scheduled for some counseling sessions, two of which she had already attended.

"You will," he promised, truly believing one day she would.

She looked pensive. "I'm just trying to process all this, and I can't figure out why I'm so damned angry."

Flint had been told to talk frankly with her. Pie in the sky would not do her any good.

"Allison," he said, facing her fully, "someone put a bullet in your body. I can't think of any reason why you shouldn't be angry at that. It's put you in a lot of pain, and it's going to be a long road back."

He wanted in so many ways to tell her how she had come to be wounded, but there was no use. The fact was that it had happened. Her sacrifice was legitimate. To try to explain otherwise would have been a violation of the promise he had made to Suarez, assuming she had told him the real story. Still, it did nothing to assuage his guilt when he looked at the scars on her skin. Some day, he would tell her the truth, when he was sure the both of them could handle the consequences.

A sad look overcame her face. "I know we're in a war. I always knew this was a possibility, but you never think it's going to be you. I've seen our people get wounded before, but my life just went on. I never gave it a second thought what their lives were like afterward, you know?"

"I know," he admitted. The names Osterman and Kelly flashed in his mind. They were recovering, too. "Thing you have to remember is that you're not alone in this. A lot of people care about you." Then he added, "I care."

She took his hand in hers. "I know you do. I'm just afraid that's going to get old. I'm afraid I'm not going to get through this fast enough for everyone."

"All you have to worry about is your own pace," he said. "You worry about you think, not what others think."

Allison gave a small smile. "You sound like that shrink they're making me see."

"Yeah, well, we smart people think alike."

She looked deeply into his eyes. "You're a good man, Dash."

He was drawn into the depths of her gaze. "You make it easy."

The air became thin as he looked at her. It was same feeling of attraction he had felt before with her, only now more intense. He realized it had surpassed the erotic and crossed over into what he had to admit was love.

He was in love with her.

Suarez had pegged it, even though he had denied it. He loved Allison. He had been kidding himself, buying into that it was something that was never meant to be because of their careers. All that changed in one day. It was no longer a game. It was real. He had no idea how he would make it work, but he had to try. Flint was no longer willing to let her slip out of his life. He had nearly lost her on the mountain, and he was not willing to ever let that happen again.

"I think I better hit that shower," she said, wisely breaking the moment.

At any other time, he would have tried to keep it going, but he knew he had to take his time. He now had a mission for himself, and he was content to work at that for however long it took.

"I'm going to go pick up some Chinese for dinner. You hungry?" he asked, letting her off the hook.

"Starved. Kung boa beef sounds like a winner." Her answer was no surprise. It was what she always ordered.

He smiled and wiped at a patch of perspiration on her temple. "That I can do."

Allison stood and hooked the towel around her neck. She walked slowly toward the bathroom, giving a glance back in his direction.

"Dash?" she said, turning toward him again. She leaned on the doorframe.

"Yeah?"

She hesitated. Then she said, "Thank you."

He smiled at her words. "Go, before I get too excited about you in that shower."

She laughed and threw the towel at him. "Get me some food!"

He watched as she closed the door. Flint stood and reached into his pocket for his keys. He stepped out into his driveway where the air was crisp and cold. Winter was bearing down on the area. Snow had been predicted for the night, a large storm that had the potential to drop quite a bit and clog the roads.

Flint slid into the driver's seat of his Durango and turned over the engine. He reached for the headlights and nearly hit his head on the roof of the SUV. Nancy Suarez leaned against the door of his garage, casually smoking a cigarette.

He turned off the engine but kept the lights on, wanting to be able to see her.

"Hi, Flint," she said congenially, smiling at him.

"Hi," he said, still shocked. "I didn't think I'd ever see you again."

She reached into her leather jacket and withdrew a long box. "Ran out of smokes," she said, showing him the carton.

"You're looking . . . alive," he said, not meaning for sarcasm to surface.

"Eh, a couple holes in the noggin, a little scar. I'm good," she said nonchalantly. "You?"

"Good," he responded. "Elwood's gone," he informed.

She nodded. "I know. Did a Houdini on you during transfer to the holding facility."

"Of course you know," he said. "So, care to share where he's hiding?" It was worth a shot.

Suarez shrugged. "Let's just say he knows where Hoffa's buried now." She winked. "He won't be bothering anyone else again."

He could not say he was sorry to hear it. Elwood, it seemed, had slipped through their fingers despite heavy security on his transfer. Someone had performed some amazing diversionary tactics to pull off the stunt, much to the chagrin of commanders across the board. A search team was currently scouring for where their prize had gone.

"So," he said slowly, "isn't this violating that little non-interference rule you have?"

"Perks of being called a hero," she said. She took a deep breath and became serious. "I came back to thank you, Flint."

She caught him off guard. She was thanking him for trying to kill her – twice.

"I think we're even in that department," he said carefully.

"Maybe," she said. "But you really pulled it together at the end. I hadn't figured that so far into my calculations. I thought it was important for you to know what you did made a difference, both here and in the future."

"Thanks, but I'm curious," he said. "The hole was black. How did Brian come back to save you? You seemed convinced it was over."

"Byron," she corrected. "And as far as I could see, time for me had ended. You changed my destiny, gave me a chance I wasn't supposed to have. Byron watched from the moment my timeline ended to determine it wouldn't harm anything for me to go forward in history. You made an acceptable evolution at the point where time was no longer recorded."

"You're living the future as you should," he concluded.

"It's a new world for me every time I go home," she said.

"You're still jumping around making things right?"

"Not as much as before," she said, "but I do occasionally take on a mission here and there. I'm nearing retirement age in my circle. Time for the younger kids to take over."

He liked the sound of that. "Going to live it up?"

"I'm debating," she said. "I like my job."

"No chance of coming to live in this time? Winters are pretty spectacular around here."

She sighed ruefully. "If only" she said regretfully. "But my place is in my time. I know that for sure. There's work to be done there. James wasn't entirely wrong about the situation. At least some good will have come of all this."

"I hope so," he said, nodding. "You staying here a while, though?"

"No," she said, straightening off the garage door. "I have to go now, as a matter of fact. They're monitoring this, and I'm already behind schedule." She took a deep breath again and looked at him. "You better go get that Chinese. Your girl's waiting."

She held out her hand to him. He took it, feeling her warm embrace. Her grip was solid on his hand. She gave him a quick squeeze before breaking away and stepping back toward the garage door.

A swirling disc opened up just behind her, only this time, he could see white. Byron stood there, waiting for her. He nodded at Flint, raising his hand in a little wave.

"Have a good life, Flint," she advised. Then, she stepped backward to where Byron stood. She, too, gave a small wave. Byron swished away the smoke from her cigarette and gave a roll of his eyes.

"You, too," he said.

Just as quickly as it appeared, the disc snapped shut, disappearing from sight. Flint stood in the headlights of the Durango, alone.

He tried to absorb what had happened, and he found it easier than he would ever have dreamed. He used the drive to the Chinese carry-out to process it. Flint found he was satisfied that Suarez had come and gone in such a fleeting manner. There would be no reporting it to his superiors. He saw no value in doing so. His promise of protecting what he knew of the future was one to keep.

Flint picked up the order at the counter, having called it in on the way. He made sure to ask for chopsticks. Allison liked to use them, but they were seldom included in the orders unless requested. While he did not care for "sporks", either, she liked the traditional sense of chopsticks and enjoyed laughing at him as he tried to navigate their use.

When he arrived back at his house, he smelled wood burning. As he looked up, he saw smoke rising from his chimney. Inside, Allison had started a fire in the fireplace and was tending to it when he entered. She had lit candles and doused the lamps. The only strong light was the subdued hues of the patio lights wafting in through the large sliding doors on the other side of the living room. Quiet piano music played on the stereo in the corner, matching the muted shadows in the living room. The fire crackled quietly as the logs caught solidly on fire.

Allison looked more beautiful to him than ever, especially in dark green silk pajamas that shimmered in the glow of the candles. Her hair was still damp, darker in the shadows than normal. She looked up at him, with his arms full of their dinner.

"I was beginning to worry," she said, slowly standing.

He put the food on the coffee table. "Ran into an old friend," he said.

Flint sat down on the couch. He helped her as she sat down next to him and leaned back into the cushions. He sat back, too, and put an arm around her. Allison pulled her legs up and snuggled into his chest. The scent of the vanilla shampoo she used wafted into his senses, comforting him. It mingled with the pumpkin from the candles, creating a comforting mix of earthy smells. He suddenly lost his desire for dinner, and he sensed that she had, too.

He put his arm around her, holding her, savoring the fact that he could. Flint had almost lost her. He never wanted to let her go again. His eyes strayed to the Purple Heart certificate that sat on the coffee table. It had been awarded the previous afternoon. She had earned it, though the words did not nearly encompass what she had done, in his opinion.

He gently kissed the top of her head, settling down further into the couch. Together, holding one another, they watched out the large windows before them as the first snow began to fall.

_The End._


End file.
